Looks like Fury-Joshua will just be one fight (not two) - Fury-Wilder III first?

I don't fault Hearn in this at all. He has a fighter who wants a bigger payday than the 'normal' big paydays he typically gets. Hearn can put together a fight where Joshua makes $30 million and his opponent makes $1 million. Those are no problem. It's more difficult when the guy who normally makes $30 million wants $50 or $60 million, and so does the other guy, but the fans won't pay more. It's also difficult that Hearn can't control the cost of the PPVs in the UK. Otherwise, the UK fans would have to pay what everyone else does for PPVs in a heartbeat.

I also don't fault Arum and Warren. They had the third Wilder fight signed. They can make a lot of money off that. They thought they could make MORE fighting Joshua, so, like you said, they let Hearn try to do what he said he could do, and they'd deal with the Wilder contract lawsuits afterward.

I'm all for unifying all the belts. Like I said before, if Eddie gets one oil guy with a small weiner to basically cover the cost of the WHOLE thing, more power to him. One beltholder is better than two.

But, if the fans won't pay more and Hearns can't find one big backer, he's kind of stuck. So, if it doesn't happen, I blame the British fans. If it's the biggest fight ever in England, it should be the most expensive fight to watch, too. That's how it works everywhere else.

And, if this isn't happening, bring on Fury-Wilder III and Joshua-Usyk. Or, Wilder-Joshua I. I'd rather see Joshua fight Wilder than Usyk. As long as the top three or four guys are fighting (in any combination), that works for me.

 

Posted this in another thread but it fits here, too.

The problem with Hearn's big site offer is he promised Fury's team a binding agreement, meaning the guy has to pay that fee, as in put that much in an account so everyone knows the money is there or agree to pay everyone a percentage in installments before the fight -- for example, six weeks out, three weeks out, a week out and then the morning of the fight.

You know, Barry Hearn was running things at the time, but you can trace Arum's doubts back to incidents like when Barry dropped the ball for the big 'High Noon in Hong Kong' Frank Bruno-Ray Mercer/Tommy Morrison-Herbie Hide doubleheader that was supposed to take place in October 1994 in China, but the whole card was cancelled the morning of the fight because the moneyman in China who Barry had lined up didn't come thru with the money.

All the fighters were in China. The ring was set up. And then it was just called off that day. Arum didn't want to have much to do with Barry after that.

Arum's old, but he remembers incidents like that. It also may be one reason why Barry just retired. Like Eddie was showing the players that he was running things, not his dad. Eddie is clearly doing everything he can to make the fight. But sometimes in big deals, old grudges rise to the surface.

Even with binding agreements, sometimes the financier can't make payments and the fight is called off. Happened famously with the Larry Holmes-Gerrie Coetzee unification. But the guy financing that wasn't a Saudi oil guy.

That's the problem with just having ONE entity financing the whole thing and not letting the market set the price for the fight.

Mayweather-Pac split more than $350 million themselves because the promoters charged $100 for the PPV and 5 million people in the U.S. alone still bought it.

They weren't depending on ONE guy to buy it.

Stuff like this has been going on since Dempsey-Gibbons, when the town of Shelby overpaid for a title fight and lost everything because no one knew if the fight was actually going to happen until the town made the final payment. Sometimes, like in High Noon in Hong Kong, the fight collapses at the last minute because the money wasn't deposited or, as in the case with Holmes-Coetzee, payments are made and then they stop.

Who knows, Eddie may have thought he had everything nailed down but he may be dealing with a coke head who decided to fly off on a holiday right when Eddie needed him to transfer the money into an account and now the backer is stoned out of his mind.

I'm rooting for Eddie, though. The story of how this did or didn't come off could end up being one of those famous boxing stories.