By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder’s co-manager Shelly Finkel says he wants Eddie Hearn to come with “truckloads of money” to make the fight with Deontay Wilder as he’d said.
Finkel says, “we’re here,” ready to make the Joshua vs. Wilder fight. Of course, Hearn may have changed his mind about pitting Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) against former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) after witnessing his brutal 1st round knockout of Robert Helenius last Saturday night in New York.
That KO by Wilder may have scared both Hearn and Oleksandr Usyk off from fighting him. They might have expected to see the same Wilder that had been hammered into the canvas by Tyson Fury in consecutive fights in 2020 and 2021.
Wilder is a different fighter now than the one that lost to Fury twice. He’s tried down from 238 lbs to 214 lbs and much faster with his cobra-like right hand.
It’s safe to say after the way Wilder totally obliterated Helenius (31-4, 20 KOs), Hearn is going to make sure that doesn’t happen to his main moneymaker for Matchroom, Joshua. AJ is the equivalent of the old Spindletop oilfield in Beaumont, Texas.
Joshua is faithfully pumping money for Matchroom, and Hearn isn’t going to mess that up by letting Deontay turn him into meteor dust the way he did with Helenius.
“A couple of months ago, Eddie Hearn sent us a letter, and we said the most important thing is Deontay training and doing what he did tonight,” said Wilder’s co-manager Shelly Finkel to Fight Hub TV.
“Now that he’s done it, we’ll see if Eddie will come with the truckloads of money he said and the Joshua deal that he said. We’re here. He knows how to reach us, so we’ll see. We’ll see if tonight changed his mind.
Joshua-Wilder bigger than Fury-Usyk
“Anything is possible in boxing. I believe it can be made. I agree that it’s a much bigger fight than Fury-Usyk,” said Matchroom Boxing CEO Frank Smith to iFL TV about a fight between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder being bigger than Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk.
“It’s nothing against Fury-Usyk. It’s just that Wilder and Joshua has been built for so long and spoken about for so long. It’s a fight that people want, and I do truly believe that’ll happen.
“He’s a big star in the heavyweight division and a big star in the sport. Hopefully, we can make that fight. We tried to make it [Joshua vs. Wilder]. DAZN spoke a lot to Deontay’s team. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, but we tried really hard to make it.
“It’s never too late. I still think we can get it over the line, and it’s still a massive fight now, regardless of belts. The dream was always to become undisputed. That continues to be the dream, but big fights happen as well. That’s the biggest fight out there,” said Smith.
