Eddie Hearn says Wilder won’t be Joshua’s next opponent.
After Anthony Joshua’s spectacle against Jake Paul in December, it seemed things were full steam ahead for the British superstar. He was over a year removed from a punishing loss to Daniel Dubois, and a big-money win of little difficulty was exactly what he needed to regain some confidence.
There were reports of a February warm-up against kickboxer Rico Verhoeven before the gigantic clash that everyone has been waiting for: A fight with Tyson Fury.
However, something happened that absolutely nobody could have possibly accounted for.
Joshua’s car crash in Nigeria was as unexpected as it was tragic, while the physical pain endured won’t have a patch on the mental anguish of Joshua losing two of his closest friends.
As a result, Joshua’s fighting future was thrown into doubt, and the proposed Verhoeven fight instead went to Oleksandr Usyk.
In the past couple of months, it has seemed more likely that Joshua will return, but despite a face-to-face callout from Tyson Fury after his win over Arslanbek Makhmudov last Saturday, who “AJ” will be returning against isn’t so clear.
Fans have suggested a bout with Deontay Wilder before the Fury fight. As Wilder is coming off of his victory over Derek Chisora, this fight does carry some intrigue.
And although Eddie Hearn has stated he would happily stage this as a warm-up fight, it now appears that it will likely not be taking place next.
“The deal that we’ve been offered, which is to fight in July and then fight Tyson Fury in November, is not with Deontay Wilder in mind”, Hearn said in an interview with talkSPORT Boxing. “I think the powers-that-be don’t really want us to be in that type of fight.”
Hearn did, however, say that they are up for that type of fight and that Joshua has stated he will fight Fury and Wilder back-to-back.
Upon being asked if a July date in the United Kingdom is likely, Hearn replied, “July somewhere. I mean, look, this is an offer that’s been made by Turki Alalshikh, Ring, and Riyadh Season. Wherever that fight could be in July and then fight Tyson Fury. That’s the deal that’s been proposed to us at the moment, and that looks like the route that we will take.”
When he was then told that people would likely think the Wilder fight would be great for Joshua, especially after the American’s recent win over Chisora, Hearn responded with, “If we were promotin’ the event, that’s exactly what I’d be doin’. I’d be goin’, ‘Deontay Wilder. Tyson Fury’. But this is a deal put to us, with Fury against AJ as the mountaintop of that deal.
There’ll be a lot of people that won’t wanna go into a fight that they feel is risky and put that fight at jeopardy. The reality is, all fights are risky, ‘specially in that division. But we have no problem fightin’ Wilder. I don’t think it will be Wilder under the basis of this deal, but we’ll have to see.”
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