Strangely enough it was Arum who revealed that both guys will earn over $75m and at one stage claimed over $100m. Talk about stupid, when your in a court battle. Hearn kept saying it was close and lots of interest but never talked figures.
Hearn typically doesn’t disclose figures, in America all of the purses are usually published widely. Fair play to Wilder for asking for step aside money but his demands are clearly far too much. In an ideal world he’d fight on the undercard of Fury/Joshua and then take on the winner but he won’t do that for numerous reasons. Mainly money. The inactivity of fighters nowadays is something I’d try and change about the sport.
Looking forward to Fury v Wilder and Joshua v Usyk more than Joshua v Fury. Can see the latter being a Fury boxing lesson against Runny Egg Joshua.
Mental. They actually need to keep him away from interviews from now on after the Crawford, Teo and now Fury debacle. He's messed up the three biggest Top Rank stars over the last 12 months. Top Rank can still be run by Arum if neccesary but they need a new younger face of the company as hes a massive liability
Isn't that if it goes to purse bids? If they can negotiate a deal beforehand then the mandatory purse split doesn't take place.
I don't think it's a bad thing if it's Joshua v usyk and fury v wilder. I'm pretty sure 1 of them mess up the unification for undisputed for the end of the year. If they do both win that has given them both good preparation for the other. Joshua fights a slick mover and fury gets the ring rust off against a big puncher. If they lose then it opens the division up again. It's not like they decided to have the fight in the UK anyway. They were both money grabbing over In Saudi. Let them earn it and get a good win on there records
It's not about ducking, it's about RISK. Anything can happen, an injury, a cut, anything, there doesn't have to a rematch clause, Hearn can't force one. So AJ dropping a belt is a realistic option, if they can't secure a rematch clause and don't want to go to purse bids then they might think it's a better option to drop the WBO belt and keep the others and move on. Hearn has already said they might drop a belt to avoid the hassle of a mandatory.
Agreed. It's certainly not a foregone conclusion that Joshua and Fury will win. Usyk is an elite level boxer and it'll be fascinating to see how he gets on against Joshua. It'll be a very difficult fight for AJ. Likewise, Wilder is obviously inferior to Fury by an enormous margin, but as with all his fights, he only needs one big shot and he's quite capable of finding it.
Then he cant use money as an excuse. I dont think they will anyway. After the Chisora fight i think they fancy it now. He was still a bit of an unknown quantity at heavy before that.
Somebody will be proven right or wrong but I don’t think they have a problem with fighting Usyk at all. He’s got some skills but it’s a whole different game with somebody the size of AJ. AJ has very obvious weaknesses but a measured approach should see him winning easily.