By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn has revealed that Deontay Wilder’s co-manager Shelly Finkel has replied to an old email he sent from last August about their interest in a fight against Anthony Joshua in 2023.
Hearn didn’t say whether he’s still interested in making a fight between former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) and Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) because ‘The Bronz Bomber’ looked outstanding with his first round knockout victory over Robert Helenius last month on October 15th. Wilder’s victory may have scared Hearn off.
We don’t know if Eddie is still hankering for a fight with Joshua after Wilder after witnessing what the Alabama native did to the 6’6″ Helenius.
Joshua, 33, is expected to take a tune-up fight next, possibly against 40-year-old Chris Arreola, and then another warm-up match after that against Dillian Whyte. Those are both poor fights, but the British boxing public will be excited at seeing Joshua fight Whyte in a rematch of their 2015 contest. However, Whyte has looked shot in his recent knockout losses to Tyson Fury and Alexander Povetkin.
The chances are, Whyte will lose his confidence builder this month against Jermaine Franklin on November 26th and ruin Hearn’s plans in using him for tune-up purposes for Joshua.
Assuming Whyte doesn’t lose to Franklin, after those two tune-ups for AJ, Hearn will assess whether he’s ready to take on Wilder or not. I don’t know that Joshua will be because he needs more than two soft opponents to show whether he’s regained his confidence after his two defeats against Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua needs to take on a good heavyweight like Joe Joyce, Frank Sanchez, and/or Filip Hrgovic rather than wasting time fighting the over-the-hill Whyte and Arreola.
Unfortunately, Joshua & Hearn can forget about putting together a fight against WBC champion Tyson Fury because he confirmed on Monday that he’s not going to give AJ another chance after he didn’t take the bone that he was throwing at him when he offered him a shot at his title on December 3rd.
Fury seemed bitter still about Joshua and Hearn not quickly signing the contract and returning it to his management after he set two deadlines. After missing out on that fight, Fury is now reduced to facing the played-out Derek Chisora on December 3rd, and he’s becoming the laughingstock of the division with that bone-headed move.