By Jeff Aranow: Deontay Wilder and his co-manager Shelly Finkel are interested in putting a fight together against Anthony Joshua for April 13, as long as his promoter Eddie Hearn keeps the negotiations professional and most importantly private. Finkel doesn’t want Hearn to be broadcasting how the negotiations are going. Hearn has been open in the past in saying what he feels Wilder is worth for a fight against Joshua.
Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) fought to a 12 round split draw against former heavyweight unified world champion Tyson Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) last Saturday night in Los Angeles, California. Hearn says he saw the fight and felt that Wilder lost to Fury by 2 rounds. Hearn is now saying he thinks there’s a better chance of making the Joshua vs. Wilder fight now.
“We’re very interested in the fight,” Finkel said to skysports.com. “If he wants to be professional and keep it in a private discussion, I’m open to it. If everything is in the paper, I have no desire to discuss anything, and let him go fight who he wants.”
Finkel asking Hearn to keep private with the Joshua vs. Wilder negotiations might be asking too much of the Matchroom promoter, who likes to talk and give play-by-play in the status of negotiations. Whether Hearn keeps quiet about the status of the Wilder-Joshua negotiations may depend on how serious he is in putting the fight together.
If Hearn is ambivalent about making the Joshua vs. Wilder fight, then he could very well give daily status updates to the boxing public on the progress of the negotiations in order to try and create public pressure on Deontay to accept less than what he’s asking for as far as the purse split goes. Assuming that Hearn is serious about wanting to put the Joshua vs. Wilder fight together, he’ll follow Finkel’s wishes and keep quiet until the negotiations are done.
“Let’s see what happens,” Hearn said to skysports.com when asked about his thoughts on putting together the Joshua vs. Wilder fight.
Hearn has already said that if he can get the Joshua-Wilder fight together, he’ll give a shot at negotiating a Joshua vs. Fury fight for April 13. However, it’s believed that Hearn has already has Matchroom Boxing USA fighter Dillian Whyte pegged as the fighter that will be facing Joshua on April 13. The only thing that Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs) needs to do for him to get the Joshua fight on April 13 is to win his rematch against Dereck Chisora (29-8, 21 KOs) on December 22 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Whyte winning that fight will very likely write his ticket for a rematch against Joshua on April 13. Wilder wants a fair purse split for the Joshua fight. The Bronze Bomber is aiming for a 50-50 split. For his part, Fury is asking for a 60-40 split with him getting the bigger percentage than Joshua. Both of those requests will be non-starters for Hear, who fancies Joshua as the A-side against Wilder and Fury.
Fury will get his rematch with Wilder soon.