AJ may give up all his belts!

This is just negotiating tactics with Usyk IMO.

Usyk wants his shot at Joshua, threatening to vacate would leave Usyk fighting a lesser name for chump change regardless of what split he gets with AJ.

Of course, if all Usyk cares about is the belt then it's a moot point, but I think he has been looking at Joshua all along

I'd be extremely surprised if any belts are vacated tbh. It just weakens AJs bargaining position in any future fight.

 

Hearn's just trying to blackmail or pressure the governing bodies to allow him some more leeway with mandatories and their percentages, rematch clauses, etc.
The governing bodies don't want to lose their sanctioning fees from a big money fighter like AJ.
But Hearn has to be careful not to push it.

I would absolutely love it if Hearn, and other leading promoters, and the top fighters united to boycott and bring down these alphabet organizations, but I don't think that will happen.
Hearn possibly has ambitions in that direction but, let's face it, he still wants his prospects to get 'title shots'.

 

I really hope that he will vacate all belts he does have because last lad he had for title defense was almost 40 y.o uncle and uncle had to offer far lesser vs AJ than so called as just euro level Takam.

While AJ sometimes likes me more than Usyk, sometimes equal.

 

Hearn is just posturing. The reality is that, as frustrating as the sanctioning bodies can be, having a title is worth $ to the fighter and the promoter. "Title fight" still means something to fans, plus the guys themselves seem to like having actual belts.

At a certain point I agree that it makes sense to drop them, but not at HW. When guys move up divisions , people stop caring. No one needed Mayweather/Pacquiao to be fight a title. It was for PfP No. 1. But Joshua isn't even the No. 1 guy in the division, so it would be foolish to drop *all* of the belts. (Letting one go might be okay, tho.)

 

The problem with that is that it's not the belts what's freezing the fight. It's the contract that fury signed with wilder. And it has nothing to do with belts.

 

Riddick Joshua. Lol

 

An enormous duck!

That shows how much of a threat Usyk is, for Joshua has been a belt obsessive from the beginning of time!

 

What an absolute embarrassment
For the largest Heavy weight to duck the smallest heavy weight.

no way... NO GÜEY

what part of the game is this??
Has this ever happened in the history of Heavy weight boxing?!

lmfao

 

Said this before myself... AJ represents a massive payday and Usyk would have known he'd get mandatory status just by moving up, which meant a guaranteed shot at Joshua. Even if he believes he almost certainly loses (which he probably doesn't), that payday is just too huge to pass up before retiring.

This is, I think, why Usyk was trying so hard to get his crack at AJ before AJ tried to go undisputed against Fury - the payday wouldn't have gone up much if AJ beat Fury, but the payday for his mandatory fight would've gone down if Usyk was fighting Fury instead (plus rematch clause would've meant a long wait and he's also old).


AJ/Hearn know all this - they hold the cards and money talks... They're probably fishing for the rematch clause without giving up a significant chunk more than mandatory are typically entitled to.

AJ loses his power to steamroll these splits if he gives up his belts, and he makes it far harder to get to the undisputed he seems to badly want - one way or another this fight gets made, I'm almost certain of it.

 

Yeah, 5 years ago Hearn jumped at the chance to get Joshua that shot at the IBF title with Charles Martin, which was an absolute joke of a 'champion' at the time. Hearn made a huge deal of promoting that as "THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD", quite shamelessly, seeing as Fury had just dethroned Wlad a few months earlier. They paid Martin A LOT of money to come over to get Joshua on the "world champion" ladder back then.
Things have changed for Joshua since then, and he's a huge and established legitimate champion, but Hearn would love to do the same with any young fighter with potential, I'm sure.

 

I think this had been more fair and more clear for anyone in the world.
They should introduce orgs belts, like Match room and Top Rank belts and all will be more clear.

 

duck season

 

They'll negotiate emiratus status with all the organisations before he drops any belts.

 

Until he actually does it, I'm calling this just empty words.