Wilder v Joshua agreed for 9 March 2024

Despite it being clear Wilder turned down multiple offers to fight AJ (all of which where double his career high purse at the time of the offers), Wilder's former manager admitting Wilder had no interest in fighting AJ and Wilder himself accidentally admitting he ducked AJ for more money to fight Fury.

 

Eddie Hearn in April 2018:

"Wilder is a massive high risk fight and it’s the biggest fight in British boxing. Yes, Joshua wants greatness, but it is also a business. I wouldn’t expect you to take a job that was much harder and much more risk for a similar kind of money. You would just keep working on the easy stuff. This is a massive job - the biggest job out there - but what’s the money? It’s just a little bit more than you’re on at the moment. He is not worth 60/40 - nowhere near. I’m sorry but that’s the reality. Maybe Josh will pay over time, but I don’t think he should. This is the biggest fight of his career and maybe the biggest fight of his career forever.”

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/box...e-Hearn-Deontay-Wilder-Boxing-news-Fight-Hype

Barry Hearn in May 2018:

"The Deontay Wilder fight, if I was Anthony Joshua, I’d be leaving that for a little while."

https://metro.co.uk/2018/05/08/barry-hearn-urges-anthony-joshua-reject-deontay-wilder-fight-7530743/

A much more confident pre-Ruiz Joshua on why he ducked Wilder, in his own words:

"I’ve got a career I need to map it out, I’m going to take fights at the right time for me and if it’s next year (2018) or the year after (2019) or the year after (2020) when I fight him (Wilder) I’ll be in a position to beat him. I started boxing 2008, Wilder turned pro 2009, so he’s been a pro one year longer than my whole career. So you can see why they’re rushing him for certain reasons and you can see why I’m taking my time for certain reasons. As I say the fighter on my shoulder says let’s rock and roll, the coach on my shoulder says ‘you know what Josh, you need to just work on a few more things before you take a fight like that. Because when it’s all said and done, all that matters is that win, not the fact that people say ‘he didn’t fight him here and he didn’t fight him there’. - Anthony Joshua, 2017

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/4620257/anthony-joshua-vs-kubrat-pulev-deontay-wilder-wembley/

"I always think about that one punch, no one can beat me skill-for-skill, I don’t think. But it’s that one punch: I’d hate for that to be the reason why I lose. One punch. And that’s what they’re all looking at. Every fight is scary. You don’t want to lose everything you’ve got – especially this one – this was a banana-skin fight because of what’s to come. As with the Parker fight, I didn’t want to take any risks." - Anthony Joshua, 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/23/anthony-joshua-admits-fears-one-punch

“If I have another one of these (life and death) fights, I’m done with boxing. I should be good enough that I don’t have to go through hell and back to win a fight. It should be a good competition, but I shouldn’t have to go through one of those fights to win.” - Joshua to McCracken post-Wlad

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/anthony-joshuas-pre-fight-comments-16247010

"That's why I don't want to travel to America, not just for the sake of it, because it limits a lot of people from being able to come and watch me." - Anthony Joshua, 2018

https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story...ed-states-eyes-deontay-wilder-wembley-stadium

Interviewer: “Do you want to fight Wilder next?”

Joshua: “Argh my back! Is there a doctor in here my back’s gone.”

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"(New Matchroom signing) Luis Ortiz against Joshua could be a huge fight for 2017 and we have no problem in making that fight if it is the right move. People get the impression that AJ is mollycoddled, but they couldn't be more wrong. Look at the Charles Martin fight, everyone looks back and says it was an easy fight, but at the time they were saying it was a hard fight that was coming too early. If the reward is there to take the risk against Ortiz, who is very dangerous, and the fight is big enough, then yes, let's do it.” - Eddie Hearn, 2016

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...oxing-wladimir-klitschko-boxing-a7408346.html

 

Yep Joshua got traumatised by his first ever live test when a shot to pieces old retired VLADD who fury schooled two years prior took him life and death fresh off his sofa.

Big meech shat his britches after that and cherry picked his way through a who’s who of shot to pieces old names and absolute bums until the stay puft marshmallow man and the feather fisted cruiser buried his soul for good.

Joshua successfully failed to get in the ring with Wilder and Fury his whole career. this much we know. The top two had no problems making a trilogy for the ages with each other either.

 

I don’t mind Parker, seems like a good family man, but I think he in deep here against the windmiller who can’t box for toffee, but has dynamite in his fists.

 

Mitchroom is about to be hoisted by his own petard when Wilder KO's Parker. Suddenly Wilder will become a great fighter overnight!

 

You, I and other armchair boxing fans can't box for toffee, Wilder won a bronze medal on 34 months experience winning nearly all his bouts by decision and beat the gold medallist in Russia, before becoming a historically long-reigning titlist. He also plastered Haye in sparring by Haye's own admission and spurred his retirement/duck of Fury.

 

I actually think Wilder CAN box a bit. He used a boxing approach to beat Stiverne and has a decent jab when he uses it. Also hes done a lot of sparring in the UK and everybody who sparredhim gives him a good name. I expect him to start off with his jab on the night and it will be intriguing to see if that works. Parker is a tidy boxer himself.

 

They were young in 2018 lol

 

Arreola too, got shut out. Wilder also did a better job on Arreola than Vitali by every metric: got hit less, threw less (greater efficiency), greater accuracy, dropped Arreola, won every round, stopped him two rounds earlier and Arreola wasn't quite as fat vs Wilder as he was vs Vitali.

At the time Arreola was said to be "shot" because it's impossible that Wilder could produce a better performance than a mythical H2H God like Vitali. But a few years later Arreola broke the Compubox record vs Kownacki and a couple after that he gave Ruiz a very tough fight over 12. And he hasn't been dropped or stopped since Wilder.

 

Let's be factual here. Wilder ducked AJ to rematch Fury, who he knew would be better than the first fight for obvious reasons

AJ ducked Wilder to fight old boy Povetkin.

Boxing politics between Matchroom and PBC messed this up. Neither fighter is scared of the other. Haymon wanted a big Showtime PPV to get money back on Wilder. Hearn wanted this as a flagship fight on DAZN, hence why when it was time to make it AJ left Showtime making the fight even harder to make.

Both Wilder and AJ were too loyal to Haymon and Hearn respectively.

Such a shame these guys haven't faced off 3 times themselves. I'm looking forward to it and are thinking of making my Saudi debut if I can get hold of tickets

 

Don't forget to thank his excellency and the kingdom of saudi arabia, and riyadh season for making your visit possible eh.

 

I wonder when the “Elite heavy with GOAT power” is going to decide to sleep Parker?

He’s leaving it a bit late.

 

Back to Boxrec young cub.

 

The man is hilarious. From this 5 years ago to "never rated him" last Saturday night. He's a walking contradiction.

As are all boxing promoters, as evidenced by the love-in with Eddie and Frank last week after years of bitching. Surprised Frank didn't do his classic turn and produce some printed emails showing he was right and Eddie wrong all along.

 

Just catching up on some posts and I agree that Wilder did revert to decent boxing in the first Stiverne fight.