Wilder vs Parker, Joshua vs Wallin, Bivol vs Arthur planned for Dec 23rd

This is cleverly designed by Hearn to push Joshua to win the title again in an "easy" way, Hrgovic is in an awkward situation and the fight against Bakole would be a high risk and Hrgovic has no choice but to accept the fight...

 

I don't necessarily disagree - it's not really in his best interests to take a risky fight now...

At the same time, that mindset is a product of the idea that title fights are something you manoeuvre for instead of proving you're deserving by fighting regularly against guys that help you prove it (not that fighting Wallin wouldn't, or that Wallin fighting AJ should be worth more with their relative rankings in mind - regardless of the gulf in past achievement).

I get that it's playing the system as it is - but that's kind of the problem... If the system doesn't incentivize taking good fights and disincentivize taking soft touches to tread water in the rankings, then it's not doing it's job properly.

I'm not sure we're really disagreeing much, but it's an interesting point of detail.

 

So you admit he became a draw despite three losses.

Thanks for the compliment.

Of course it can be changed, by not buying sub standard PPVs

 

This would be a totally out-of-the-box, unbelievable card to finish out what was arguably the worst year in heavyweight boxing in memory ... due in large part to the Saudis making promises of huge money that never panned out.

So I hesitate to comment since we're about six weeks away ... and we haven't seen many heavyweight fights this year put together in a couple weeks, let alone an entire CARD of heavyweights.

Until it does, I'm just not going to get my hopes up.

But every time I think I'm done with the sport ... they pull me back in.

So, I hope it happens. If it does, I'll certainly buy it for myself for Christmas.

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We're six weeks out. If we get card like this that actually materializes every six weeks to two months, all is forgiven.

But, to date, the Saudis have been ALL talk. ALL talk.

We were 'days' away from a Joshua-Wilder announcement for literally eight months. Just waiting on some "prince" to decide when he wanted to do it. Then he decided to do something else.

 

Yeah, until there's a formal announcement and ticket sales, I'm skeptical. Would love to see it but am not that optimistic. Too much to pull together in a short amount of time.

 

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I already said what was going to happen. I even made a thread about it. AJ will fight Hrgovic in the spring of next year for the IBF. Then he and Wilder will fight for it, probably late summer or around this time next year. It's one way to get some of the value back into the fight to have a title on the line.

Does Wilder take another fight between Parker and then?

 

Hrgovic will be deprived of the position to fight for the IBF title because they can decide whatever they want, the problem is that Hrgovic cannot earn any significant money so that he can retire...

 

This is a PPV worthy card. Not too often you can say that about boxing these days.

 

As you well know, it takes two to tango... It wouldn't surprise me if Joshua's lost interest in Wilder given the blatant ducking of years gone by, but we know for a fact Wilder has never wanted it - so even if AJ did, it still wouldn't happen.

 

That's assuming that Wilder finally wants it

And that even if he does, he's able to beat Parker... And whilst boring, Joe is levels better proven than anyone Wilder's beaten before - it'd be easily his best win.

It'd be ironic (and hilarious) if Wilder did actually want it (never having wanted it before) and intended to let it marinade only to get sparked and cut out of the picture altogether