"Sky blocking AJ by paying him more" - Eddie Hearn

Trying to give him the big DAZN US debut and underestimating the opponent. Something about that whole episode wasn't right.
Throwing him in against Klitschko could easily have backfired. Maybe not a mistake but a gamble (credit to Joshua for taking it).
Not coming to a deal with Wilder and get to undisputed quickly. Suspect it'll never happen now.

Not much else to be fair, there was more in my head when I posted earlier but maybe you're right.

 

Well he did sell out the spurs stadium, has had Saudi pay 90 mil for the site fee and if reports are true sky pay £30 mil to screen the Usuyk rematch. But yeah his clearly not a box huge box office star and Sky just throw £30 mil away without a care in the world.

There is a cavaet when you argue 2017-2019 were his biggest box office draws and since then the buys have dropped. You need to take the opponents into account.

The two fights after 2019 were vs two non English speaking fighters in Pulev and Usuyk.

Wiki has the Pulev fight at 848k ppv buys which is huge for a fight in an empty arena. A fight which nobody thought he could lose.

While usuyk speaks not a word of English and was seen as a cruiserweight. Its not like for like when comparing against a unification bout with Parker, a fight vs Klitchko or a rematch vs Ruiz.

Apples and Oranges.

 

That's exactly what Chisora says. Everyone else has benefited hugely because of Joshua.

 

Didnt he get a part of the Matchroom business as well? I thought I heard that but can't find anything which says so.

 

No idea but it would be foolish to give away a portion of the promotion for lifetime for what will surely amount to at most a few years of fights.

 

DAZN / Matchroom was ready to offer AJ almost anything.

They absolutely had to avoid AJ ending up back on Sky.

 

Could turn out to be very short-sighted but maybe to get a small piece of the company he has to complete X number of fights with them or something.

But if Dazn and Matchroom need him to be a big player for a number of years to come to be viable, that’s a lot out of their control that could sink them. If he loses to Usyk he drops a notch and there’s likely to be very mediocre interest in Whyte/Chisora level fights … which means he’s going to have to fight Wilder probably to be a higher-level PPV … and if he loses that he’s not the star they need.

 

Should AJ lose the return fight to Usyk, he will take a good long break and return in 2 fights in 2023 against easy opposition and then he would be ready for the fight against Tyson Fury in 2024. I must admit that I have a very hard time seeing a possible mega fight against either Fury or Wilder end up on DAZN ?

 

Sky probably have the rights to use the fights in the TV world but its a different deal regarding the digital rights.

 

Not sure the Matchroom deal had anything to do with the DAZN deal.

AJ signed with Matchroom Sept 21 and I think the only thing matchroom were concerned about was AJ promoting himself rather than go to another promoter.

Remember up until DAZN made the recent announcement regarding AJ the narrative was AJ was sticking with Sky.

 

Not sure the Wilder deal can be put on them. The PBC simply didn't want the fight. They were quite happy milking the belt whilst using the potential fight with Joshua to build Deontay's own brand.

Plus we know Matchroom/DAZN actually negotiated a deal.
Not only did Wilder tweet that he turned it down to fight Fury a second time. But the PBC actually fired Lou DiBella who was raving about what a good deal he had gotten for Wilder.

These were not the actions of a side trying to get undisputed across the line.

 

That’s because Wilder didn’t want to sell himself/fight for Dazn or give Hearn any options.

DiBella got fired for negotiating an independent deal that would have made him Wilder’s promoter (presumably on a Dazn deal to fund it) without Finkel, Haymon or the rest of Wilder’s team giving him authority to do so. He was never Wilder’s promoter — he got a set fee to promote some of Wilder’s fights but no deal that tied Wilder to him.

 

Lou Dibella promoted many of Wilder's fights. Go to Boxrec and you can see his name listed for listed:
Wilder v Fury 1
Wilder v Ortiz 1
Wilder v Stiverne 2
Wilder v Washington
etc.

He gave interviews to Ring magazine who also were under the impression he was Wilder's promoter. It's like saying Al Haymon is "just" an advisor

DiBella got let go by Wilder and his team for negotiating that contract as you say.

Again, I don't see how you can blame Matchroom for that.

 

One of the initial comments from a family member close to Wilder following the Fury 2 fight is they should never had listened to Al and taken double the money on the table from DAZN to fight the easier AJ fight.

Dibella actually did the right thing by Wilder by exploring all options. Imagine if Wilder took the deal and beat Breazeale and AJ twice for $100m. He would have made more money and then gone in to the Fury fight as a megastar with himself being able to earn significantly more from the Firy trilogy.

I for one wouldn’t be surprised to see Wilder sue Finkel and Al ten years from now. The deal only didn’t suit them due to Als own network deal being his priority

 

I don’t blame Matchroom for that. But DiBella did not have a promotional contract with Wilder. He was paid a fee to promote the fights. Wilder was a Golden Boy fighter for a time (at least through Stiverne I, because they promoted it) but when that expired Haymon didn’t want Wilder signed to any specific promoter. So after that contract with Golden Boy expired, they just paid DiBella to do the legwork of promoting some of his defenses but that was all on a fight-to-fight basis — hence when he stepped out of line they cut him off.