Eddie Hearn has confirmed that Anthony Joshua is considering fighting Deontay Wilder next.

I’m sure We’ve been through this….

he declined offers made when he had obligations with others. That’s all he admitted.

For a PR Stunt, He could’ve done what fury did with AJ and accepted offers made when under legal obligations and then just mess everybody about.

wilder personality, style etc back then does not dictate a careful calculated man to dodge out of fear

 

He didn't have any obligations in 2018. He had "moral obligation" in 2019 that existed only in his mind and wasn't even open about it until almost 2 years after the fact, which sounds like a cop out. He didn't list any moral obligations when he was declining the best deal of his career at the time.

It shows that the sentence:

Is simply not true. Wilder didn't want to fight AJ. Or rather his camp didn't want him to fight AJ and Wilder was loyal to them.

 

Moral obligations are sincere obligations.

legal obligations only exist because some people don’t fulfil their moral obligations.

Why on earth would wilder not want to fight AJ? He had less to lose.

 

If they were, you would mention them while rejecting the deal, right? "Nah man, I'm cool. It's a good offer, but I promised Fury a rematch, so not happening". Why cover it up with all the "I don't want to fight on DAZN", "I'm afraid AJ will retire after I knock him out and there won't be a second fight" or "I have a better financial option" nonsense. I will tell you why. Cause all of these, including the moral obligations, are excuses Wilder used to not fight AJ. He just changed his repertoire.

There would be no legal obligations if Wilder fought AJ instead of Fury. He also fought Ortiz before Fury. Why couldn't this be AJ? It wasn't an immediate rematch, lol.

If he wanted to fight AJ he would take the offer he himself considered genuine. Before that he declined offers wanting a 50/50 split, which was him pricing himself out of the fight basically.

 

The other question is... Does anything about AJ nullify any of Fury's strengths or preferred tactics?

Perhaps...

Fury's hug and lean likely doesn't work especially well on AJ (for physical reasons like against Ngannou rather than because of cute counters like Usyk).

I'd favour AJ now - I just think it'd be a nightmare match for Fury at this stage... In their respective primes (or as both were when they beat Wlad, at least) it's harder to get to confident either way - Fury could probably get on his bike and win most rounds, but get dropped a couple of times, but I don't think he'd stand much chance of avoiding getting hit...

The thing people tend to overlook with Fury is he's mistake prone as well as prone to turning up in poor condition - he gives openings even to much poorer fighters.. the Wlad fight was a rare exception

 

At that time, Joshua was more focused on regaining the titles he lost to Andy Ruiz.

When people argue why didn't Wilder fight Joshua SIX YEARS AGO in 2019, or question why he didn't sign with DAZN that year ... they always leave out the part about Joshua getting floored four times and losing everything to Andy Ruiz in one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight history that year.

And they leave out how Joshua's own fans were saying fighting in New York was apparently so "scary" for Joshua that he had a panic attack on the way to the ring.

And Joshua's own fans were saying that Joey 'freaking' Dawejko knocked Joshua down in sparring before the Ruiz fight and gave him a concussion, and that's why he lost.

And they leave out that the fight never would've come off in 2019 because Joshua lost and spent the rest of the year trying to get it all back.

Joshua wasn't a champion for most of 2019 and his team was in full damage control for about seven months that year.

But it's always Wilder's fault they didn't fight that year. It's old news.

Now that Wilder is almost 40, is coming off two losses, major shoulder surgery and hasn't scored a KO in four years ... I guess the timing is PERFECT for Joshua.

And, if Wilder manages to KO Harper, Joshua will probably need three tuneups again, like he did in 2023, when he pushed off a Wilder fight all THAT year, too, so he could "get ready' against Franklin, Helenius and Wallin.

They let it 'marinate' so long the meat got mold on it.

It's always later. And our conversations just go in circles. We talk in circles, because most of the fights didn't happen.

Can you imagine if we had to wait until 1977/1978 for the first Ali-Frazier fight?

I'm tired of discussing this era that's winding up, honestly. It's been all talked out. We've often had a year or more between fights. We've discussed this and everything else to absolute death.

We did more talking than any of them did fighting.

Time to move forward. Maybe this new era will get on with it ... and we can discuss fights that ACTUALLY OCCURED.

 

He hasn't lost the titles yet when the offer was made.

It's irrelevant, cause it happened BEFORE AJ lost to Ruiz.

All irrelevant to the subject of Wilder declining to fight AJ and admitting it.

Again all irrelevant to the fact that Wilder rejected a genuine offer to fight AJ, turning down the best deal of his career and firing a guy who provided him with it.

It was Wilder who was declining offers all over the place in 2018 and 2019. After that, their fight was not that important, cause both of them were fighting for the second spot.

 

It's all irrelevant.

We're having the same discussion, using the same words, about the same guys that we've been doing for the last six or seven or eight years.

One year you can blame one guy. One year you can blame another.

They're all to blame.

I never saw anyone more happy that Wilder lost to Parker than Eddie Hearn. Hearn was gleeful when Wilder lost. I never saw a big-time promoter so HAPPY his next big PPV was scrapped.

And here we are having the exact same argument again about the same two guys for the seventh or eighth year in a row ... BECAUSE someone said they "might" fight in 2025.

Not that they are. That they might.

Like they MIGHT fight every year for nearly a decade now.

So let's rehash the same garbage because Eddie Hearn can "CONFIRM" that Joshua has "THOUGHTS" about MAYBE fighting Wilder this year.



It's all irrelevant.

 

I think you always preferred Aj, least my time on the board which is fine, many think he is better

 

You should have seen how Wilder was happy when AJ lost to Ruiz, lol.

It is. But the fact remains, Wilder declined multiple offers to fight AJ in 2018 and 2019 and admitted it. We have to remember that to have a clear perspective on the division back then.

 

I don't know that I'd necessarily say he's better, I have gone backwards and forwards a few times on that, but he does have the slightly better resume... Either way, I don't suspect there was ever a huge amount between them.

Generally my opinion has been that stylistically this probably favours AJ - with not a huge amount between them at their best that would mean AJ would be favourite - they're both a mixed bag in their own ways, so anything could've happened!

 

Slightly better?

 

Exactly.

There's nothing really more to this than trying to dig up the corpse of what would've been an undisputed fight by saying Joshua is interested again.

That doesn't mean Joshua ever was before (and we disagree on that, I think).

Nor does it mean Wilder will be interested, or that he ever was before even if he is now (which again, we disagree on).


The one thing, I think, we'd all agree on is that this is way too late to tell us anything meaningful about the two at their best, or how the fight might've gone when it should've happened... Or otherwise does anything to correct the score on their respective resumes (which again, we disagree on, but isn't relevant to the fact that this fight isn't relevant!)

 

AGAIN ... 2018 was SEVEN years ago. They were never going to fight in 2019, regardless, because Joshua lost.

If you want to pretend there weren't many, many opportunities for them to fight since the ONE quote you're clinging to from seven years ago, most recently in 2023, when Joshua claimed for the whole year he was going to fight Wilder next, and fought three others instead, knock yourself out.

You can fight a lot of times in seven years. Wilder and Fury fought three times in less than three years, with a global pandemic tossed in for good measure.

There's no reason it shouldn't have happened.

They are all to blame for it never happening.

 

Yes.

Bearing in mind I rate their Klitschko wins near enough equally...

Joshua
+ Better depth of quality wins
- More official losses

Fury
+ Only officially lost to Usyk, the best either man fought.
+ Better performances against Usyk.
- More asterisks (McDermott, Cunningham, Wallin)
- Struggled with a 0-0 novice, admittedly (assumedly!) through complacency primarily.
- Got caught with positive sample (Joshua may well be on them, but it's not confirmed!)

There's other factors in there too... Whether Fury facing an older Usyk helps explain the better showing against him; whether either man specifically deserves a knock for avoiding fighting the other, etc.

I think one thing that makes it difficult is... If you ran Fury's career again against the exact same opponents in the exact same condition he was in, he could well have had a couple more losses on his report card, and his overall record could only get worse - Joshua, broadly, I'd expect to have done about the same.