By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder has rejected the idea of signing with Eddie Hearn and his Matchroom Boxing stable despite being a promotional free agent on the market.
It’s unknown whether Hearn reached out to the former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) in an attempt to sign him, but it doesn’t appear there’s any interest on his part.
Hearn may have inadvertently sunk whatever chances he had of signing Wilder when he said in a recent interview that he would like to ink the big 6’7″ American so that he could put together a fight between him and Andy Ruiz Jr.
That’s not the fight that Wilder would like to make, and the fact that Hearn is ONLY interested in matching him against former IBF/WBA/WBO champion Ruiz or journeyman Dillian Whyte suggests that he’s afraid to give him the fight that he’s been chasing for many years against Anthony Joshua.
That’s the crown jewel fight Wilder has been looking to raid for eons, and Hearn has arguably been protecting AJ from him since time immemorial, guarding his flagship fighter like a dog watching the henhouse from the foxes and coyotes.
“Absolutely. We’d love to. I would love to make Deontay Wilder against Andy Ruiz,” said Hearn to iFL TV when asked if he’d like to sign former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder.
“I think it’s a great fight, it’s been ordered, and we’d love to try and make it happen. Free agent. There you go.”
“That’s negative,” said Deontay Wilder to Pro Boxing Fans when asked if he’ll be signing with Eddie Hearn and his Matchroom company.
Hearn says he wants to sign Wilder to match him up against Ruiz is the equivalent of an expensive restaurant and ordering expensive filet mignon steak and a waitress coming back with a steaming plate piled high with two-week-old pork. Wilder doesn’t want the pork. He’s looking for the expensive steak, and sadly, Hearn isn’t offering it to him.
It’s unclear whether Hearn understood how it would be perceived by Wilder him saying his objective in signing him is to make the Ruiz fight, and it’s a signal that he didn’t think it through because that’s the wrong thing for him to have said.
When Hearn badly wanted to sign Edgar Berlanga, he floated a fight with Canelo Alvarez as a potential carrot to entice him to sign. In Wilder’s case, the only thing Hearn said is he wanted to sign him to make the Ruiz fight.
Where’s the incentive for Wilder to sign with Hearn? There is none because he can make the fight against Ruiz without being signed to him. After all, that fight can be made by PBC.