Why did aj never fight Wilder and Fury but they fought eachother with no issues

I think it was probably to do with risk/reward.
I think both Wilder and Fury viewed each other as a more winnable fight than Joshua (thats not saying either couldn't win had they had the fight) and less risk
Remember Wilder took less money to face Fury
Fury was also the one that had to pull out of the signed fight with Joshua

Some fights don't happen. It's like saying why didn't Fury fight Parker but now that won't happen as he became friends with him, or Kabayel as Fury is also friends with him, and I get the impression he wouldn't be able to face Dubois either

If you look at the current top 10, there's a few fighters there that Fury actively won't be looking to fight, so maybe the Fury/Joshua fight could happen?

 

Fury and Joshua won their first world titles Nov 2015 and Apr 2016
So within 6 months of each other
Come the end of 2018

Fury made 0 defences and was 1-0-1 in world title fights

Joshua made 6 defences won 2 unification bouts was 7-0-0 in world title fights

Even now in title defences

Fury - Wilder, Whyte, Chisora

Joshua - Wladimir, Parker, Povetkin, Pulev, Breazeale, Takam, Molina

It is all subjective but isn't wrong to look at all sides

 

I don't think any of the three were genuinely afraid of eachother. Wilders camp saw Fury as a relatively easy touch to build Wilders resume and get a better deal en route to a big money fight with Joshua, and Fury probably saw Wilder as an easier comeback fight between the two and an opportunity to build his profile in America since he was still unable to fight in the UK (would only have made sense for the fight to happen in the UK at that time).
Wilder is on record admitting to turning down the huge deal offered to him in 2019 to fight Fury again. Before that, negotiations had been back and fourth and I wouldn't put the entire blame on either team really, but the most blatant avoiding of the fight came from Wilder.

With Fury the fight didn't make sense to make until he'd already beaten Wilder. Then Fury tried to get out of the rematch for that fight and negotiate with team Joshua, only to lose a court case to Wilder and be forced to fulfill the rematch clause.

So Joshua has two rock solid cases where he was not at fault for these fights falling through, Wilders 100 million deal and when Wilder won his arbitration against Fury. To try and put the blame on him in these situations would be ridiculous.

If we're atleast trying to look at this situation unbiasedly it's hard to put Joshua at fault for these fights not happening. between the three Joshua is the only one who's shown a consistent hunger to fight good opposition. Fury talks his way out of fighting contenders, even pretty blatantly ducked Dillian Whyte of all people in 2019. Wilder claimed to want to fight the best but his management had other ideas, and he didn't care to go against them. Before Turki started moving the division along, Wilder only managed 5 fights against top 10 guys, 3 of which were against Fury and 2 against Ortiz.

 

- Wilder took on Fury hoping he'd be finished by 2018.
- Wilder admitted he turned down Joshua despite a higher offer than Fury.
- Joshua had agreed to face Fury in 2021, but Wilder imposed a trilogy.

 

Truth is both considered AJ a bigger threat than each other.
Plus Hearn had bad relation with Arum, Warren and specially Shelly Finkel.

 

That is exactly what I was going to say. These are all pretty much verifiable fact as well.

The only thing I'd consider adding is that Joshua lost to Ruiz in what was supposed to be his American coming out party which also threw up another roadblock.

 

Wilder wanted 50-50 purse split in the first place.

Fury was fine with that whereas AJ wasn't.

 

I recall Fury took less than 50-50 against Wilder. So, I am sure Fury was fine with 50-50 against Joshua given how much money Joshua was generating.

 

Fury and Wilder made a conscious agreement to create their own worthless American Division, consisting of themselves and Ortiz, enabling them to duck the real World Division - a particularly dangerous division at the time - for half a decade.

 

Wilder and Fury both had tremendous hesitancy to fight any live body.

 

They were waiting for Fury to be gone long enough so AJ v Wilder could be for the lineal title. Then Fury came back and could only fight one. The fight was a draw so it became a multi year thing. After Fury won the rematch, he reached a deal with AJ but Wilder sued to get his trilogy.

I think these guys ducked new contenders but against each other it was circumstances. The ducks were never in a row.

 

Fury was lineal champ and a vulnerable one at that. Wilder picking Fury over AJ was a no brainer if you take the money out of it.

AJ would have picked Fury over Wilder too at that time if he got the call.

 

Fury didn't even look like a top 10 fighter in his 2 comeback fights after his 3 year coke bender. It's easy to look back in hindsight and think Wilder chose a top opponent for less money instead of fighting Aj but that's simply not true. Very few people considered Fury a threat at the time.

 

Personally, I think that fact that Eddie Hearn wasn't in the mix with Wilder v Fury says a fair amount... plus back then Hearn and Warren were not as happy families as they are now. Things change.