Wilder not interested in anything but 50/50 deal from now on
Here we are almost 4 days after the announcement that the heavyweight unification bout between Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua would not be taking place and it’s still the hottest topic in the sport by far. In part that’s due to the constant social media war between Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn and Wilder himself.
Wilder took to Twitter immediately following the announcement and went after both Joshua and Hearn. Joshua hasn’t responded but Hearn has and it’s fed the fan’s of both sides plenty to banter about. Others have joined in as well such as Showtime executive Stephen Espinoza and former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis as well as others.
Personally, I’ve felt from the beginning that both sides knew the whole time what was going on and all the fussing between fan’s is just ludicrous. It’s just how the sport works in this day and time. It’s all about proper “marination”.
As part of the charade, Hearn had left the offer to Wilder on the table and even added a little to it by offering Wilder an intermediate fight for $5M against whomever he choses to take place this fall on DAZN – Hearn’s new broadcast partner in America. He left the $15M deal to face Joshua out there as well which would mean two fights for $20M.
Apparently Wilder is not interested in the new offer at all as he had this to say to WBN;
“F*** Hearn,” said Wilder, regarding the DAZN offer. “We’re done with that. Only thing we needed was the belt to unify. The $50 million is off the table. That flat fee I was going to take … all that is off the table. If they ever come back to us, it’s going to be 50-50 straight down the line. I’m just glad the blindfolds are off the people’s eyes. Even casual fans can see what happened. For those that can’t see, the ones I call Eddie’s zombies, they can be a fool behind him.”
Although the offer is drastically more than any other payday of Wilder’s career he feels it’s a matter of principle now and has vowed he will not fight Joshua unless it’s a 50/50 deal now. Maybe he’s trying to copy a page from Gennady Golovkin’s playbook here but I don’t think he ever gets a 50/50 deal and neither did Golovkin. The sport has become way too much about who’s the A-side and B-side for that to happen.
Wilder says he’s going for the 51-0 record and that’s that. He could however increase his market value by taking the right fights his next couple of times out. Former champion Tyson Fury “called out” Wilder earlier this week and Wilder said he is definitely interested in that fight. It’s a fight that would definitely help build up Wilder’s profile and especially in the UK.
The WBC champion is expected to return to the ring this fall on Showtime but he’s not sure who is opponent may be yet. Dominic Breazeale is the mandatory challenger and who most expect it will be.
In the meantime, the saga continues…
By: Chris Henderson
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