Deontay Wilder says Joshua has “nowhere to go”

By Boxing News - 02/18/2019 - Comments

Image: Deontay Wilder says Joshua has "nowhere to go"

By Tim Royner: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder has given up all hope of landing a unification fight against three-belt unified champion Anthony Joshua in 2019. Wilder says he’s already been told that there’s no chance of getting a fight Joshua this year, and that the match won’t take place, if alt all until 2020. Wilder doesn’t understand why Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) won’t face him. He thinks the reason he’s being put on the back-burner by Matchroom Boxing is because he’s a “dangerous” opponent for Joshua.

“They got nowhere to go. We tried to do that in the past,” Wilder said to Thaboxingvoice about Joshua having nowhere to go. “That’s going straight down the middle,” Wilder said about wanting a 50-50 purse split now for the Joshua fight. “These guys don’t want to fight. Joshua has got nowhere to go. Who is he going to fight now? The two biggest fighters in the division is me and Fury. He [Joshua] definitely can’t fight Fury now with him on DAZN. I don’t trust them [Joshua and Eddie Hearn]. I’m not going to lower my stands no more,” Wilder said.

Wilder doesn’t seem to understand that Hearn already has Joshua fighting a very beatable Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller, a guy from New York, who is mainly known in that area of the U.S, and who recently signed on with Matchroom. This is an in house fight for Hearn in matching two of his fighters in his Matchroom stable against each other in Joshua and Miller. Hearn’s options for Joshua in the near future is to put him in with Kubrat Pulev, Dillian Whyte, Filip Hrgovic, Joe Joyce, Agit Kabayel and Sergey Kuzmin. Hearn will likely continue to make periodic offers to Wilder and Fury of less than the 50-50 deal that they’re asking for. If they continue to say no, Hearn will almost surely continue to match Joshua against those type of contenders for as it takes until Wilder and Fury cave in.

Wilder still sees Joshua having run out of viable options besides him and Tyson Fury. Wilder doesn’t mention Matchroom fighters Dillian Whyte and Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller as options for Joshua, even though he’s already scheduled to face Miller on June 1, and Dillian is expected next after that.

“I think it’s off the books, because they said they aren’t looking to fight me until 2020, if then,” Wilder said about Joshua and his Matchroom Boxing promoters not being interested in making the fight with Deontay in 2019. “They know what I want [50-50 purse split], and I’m not budging from that. I took control of my career. If they’re not willing to do it the way I say it’s got to be, then I’m going to keep going until we have to until it’s highly demanded by people. I’m not going to take it. They’re not running nothing. I don’t care how many belts they have. I’m going to knock him out,” Wilder said about Joshua.

As you can probably see for yourself, there’s some animosity with With Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) towards Joshua. Unfortunately for Wilder, if he holds out on the 50/50 split that he’s asking for to fight Joshua, he’s probably never going to get a fight against him during his career. Hearn and Joshua would likely just fight an endless list of regular challengers before they give in and give Wilder the 50-50 deal that he’s asking for to face AJ. It’s the same thing with Fury, who also wants a 50-50 deal to fight Joshua, and has very little chance of getting it. Fury, 30, arguably has a better chance of getting a 50% deal to fight Joshua than Wilder, only because a fight between them would be huge in the UK. Hearn realizes that, which is why he’s not ruled out giving Fury a 50-50 deal if he were to beat Wilder in a rematch. Today’s signing by Fury with Top Rank Boxing for hi to fight on ESPN twice per year makes it seem unlikely that he’s going to be fighting Wilder a second time. Without a win over Wilder, Fury has nothing going for him other than recent wins over Francesco Pianeta and Sefer Serferi. Fury needs to at least beat a credible threat or two in the heavyweight division for him to make a case that he rates a 50-50 deal with Joshua. Wilder’s case is probably hopeless, as far as him getting a deal that’s split down the middle for a fight with Joshua. Wilder probably is too dangerous, so thats another reason why he’s not going to get the fight with Joshua, whether it’s 50-50, 60-40 or 70-30. Hearn leaning on the World Boxing Council to get them to order the Dillian Whyte vs. Dominic Breazeale fight for the interim WBC title is a clear sign that the Matchroom promoter is hoping that Dillian can take care of Joshua’s problem for him by beating Wilder.

“If I wasn’t so dangerous, this fight would have happened, Wilder said about a fight against Joshua. “I would have been like all the other fighters that they had to negotiate with. It wouldn’t have been very difficult. We’re not that hard to negotiate with. I tried to give more power to him. I tried to swallow my pill. It was a big pill to swallow to accept $15 million when I knew the fight is huge. They’re talking about how I had to raise my profile. I did that, but now they’re trying to save face,” Wilder said about Joshua and Matchroom.

Wilder was willing to accept the $15 million flat fee that Hearn was offering him last September for a unification fight with Joshua. The fight still never happened even though Wilder agreed to the money. The World Boxing Association effectively ended the Joshua-Wilder negotiations by pushing Joshua to make his defense against his mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, which he did on September 22. For all intents and purposes, the negotiations between Wilder and Joshua never restarted after that. Wilder made it clear in the media that he wouldn’t fight Joshua unless he was given a 50-50 deal. Hearn said he would give Wilder a 60-40 deal, but not the 50-50 deal that he’s asking for.

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