Fury v Joshua is surely

Anthony Joshua yesterday mentioned the word ‘blacklisted’ twice in his IFL interview yesterday which I found interesting because he acknowledges the current dynamic that he is being frozen out by Fury, Wilder and Whyte.

He stated that he offered Whyte £5m and he turned it down. He sticks to this narrative that fighting him earns his opponents much more money than they would normally pick up and they should be grateful for it. He actually reminds me of Wenger when he was whinging about having to pay more than the going rate to sign a player just because they were Arsenal. Out of principle he wouldn’t do it and we all know how that eventually panned out for Arsenal who went from challenging for titles to fighting to get into the top 4. The product reduced in quality. This is now already evident in Joshua having to get shoved and trash talked by a pudding like Miller to hype an underwhelming fight instead of Wilder, Fury or Whyte.

Joshua is a clever lad and clearly very business minded but he needs to acknowledge that he needs to pay more than the going rate to keep the product high quality. Wilder has Showtime behind him, Fury now has ESPN behind him. Whyte is now PPV fighter and is gaining his own significant following from the casual market. They can all make a decent wedge with Joshua so he’s got to learn from this and ironically become more ‘humble’ when it comes to making deals with the fellow big guns of the division.


My point in all this, is that I see this ESPN investment making it more likely rather than less likely that Joshua, Wilder & Fury will all fight each other. The others have shown that they do have value outside of Joshua. When all sides respect the others value around the negotiating table, a deal is more likely to be thrashed out instead of one person believing they hold all the cards.

I hope we finally get to see who is the best out of the 3/4 now.

 

Good post.

On the flipside though AJ has shown by getting his biggest ever payday that he too has enormous value outside of Wilder, Fury and Whyte, its all about knowing your own worth , something I feel may backfire on Whyte at some stage.

 

You could argue that AJs offers of 60/40 maybe excessive and OTT money to get the fights done but Wilder and Fury are just not interested? I mean the at the time neutral Dan Rafael scoffed at idea that Wilder earns even 40% against AJ and said only if Hearn is feeling very generous.

 

Wenger was never at the richest club in premier league let alone the world aj has massive financial backing, it has come out that Wenger had to no money to spend due to the stadium.

Other than that I agree with all of your post twentyman your a class poster I just love Wenger to much to let stuff like that go lol.

 

60/40 wasn't enough. Like the Wenger anology, Joshua can either stick to his guns and the product quality reduces in who he fights or he coughs up a bit more to get the mega fights he wants. It’s up to him.

 

Nah that was different the Dark side built a new deathstar after Sol Cambell was seduced by the Darkside called the Emirates thinking finally they could destroy the jedi over in N17 but under the careful watch of master Levy and Obi Poch Kenobi a young Jedi named Harry Kane led a jedi revolution that eventually overthrew the sith with emperor Wenger destroyed during the hostilities.

 

Thanks bud, likewise. I’m going back to early 2000’s here bud haha, but i’m certainly not gonna diss Wenger

 

There is nothing stopping top rank and espn to make an offer to AJ if they feel 60/40 isn't fair.

 

See, I like it when you post stuff like this haha.

 

Exactly. This is what i’m now hoping will happen.

 

Thing is early 200’s he was so good in the transfer market that he could spend little money and still win and even first few years at the Emirates when he found bargains like adebayor for 3 mill.

it’s sort of ironic that by the time he was finally given more money to spend he had somewhat lost his eye for talent signings like mustafi for 35 million the money just didn’t come quick anuff haha.

 

What pressure do you think there is, or should be, on his opponents? Do you think Wilder and Fury should be under pressure to challenge for AJ's belts or is this just a one way thing? I keep on reading that AJ should compromise, AJ is being greedy etc. but at what point do you ask the same of Wilder or Fury? Shouldn't they want to be the man in the division? Isn't that what they're supposed to be about?

 

You would think career high pay day and the chance to be nunber 1 HW woukd entice any HW that is confident that they could win the potential fight.

 

I was gonna add something like this on my original post mate. As mad as it sounds, financially, holding a belt doesn’t necessarily mean you can make money nor does not holding a belt mean that you can’t. Whyte has never been world champion yet he’s now fought on 3 (I think) PPV’s in his career. Breazeale will be PPV, he could then fight a non-title fight again and still get PPV money. So in a sense there is no crazy pressure for him to fight AJ. Fury has no belt but he could realistically fight his next 5 opponents and none of them may hold a belt and he’s going to pick up £80m. Wilder is a world champion but he could also happily tick along without fighting AJ for a while. So the pressure is on Joshua ironically to keep the product quality high.

Just to add, I’m not saying that is right, i’m just saying that AJ might have to throw a bit more dosh on the table to make these fights more lucrative, instead of the attitude of he’s the only one that has value.

 

I think the alternative is more likely. That the fights themselves don't occur until a lot more money is available on the table for everyone and even then that may not be enough. Reason being is that all of this is being played out against a wider battle for the future of broadcasting and boxing and those interests are likely to influence any discussion over individual fights.