Well, well, well... WBO to order mandatory challenge to AJ after Povetkin

He would be given the benefit of the doubt if he and Hearn didn't try and make out they were interested in fighting Wilder, when it is abudantly clear that they want nothing to do with them.

If Hearn had said ''We're going to let AJ get a bit more experience before trying to unify'' then what can anyone say really?

And they did try to go this way to begin with but then the pressure started mouting when Wilder appeared after his win over Wlad and that's when Hearn and AJ began playing these stupid games pretending that they were ready and willing for the fight.

As for povetkin in terms of power and aggression I would agree he's not that far off wilder. However the key difference or disadvantage is the fact that Povetkin is shorter, older whilst AJ has the longer reach. Wilder has the youth, height and is rangier where AJ will not have luxery of being able to keep Wilder at the end of his jab all night and hold him off from getting on the inside with his size alone. Not to mention Wilder is very unorthodox, has better stamina than Povetkin, less miles on the clock and you cannot really prepare for his style of fighting.

And there is much evidence to show that AJ has very big problems with fighting Wilder which is why Eddie has no doubt paid the WBA to make Whyte his mandatory for april, even though unification trumps mandatory but that won't stop Hearn from stating that the fight is unavoidable.

 

Shame that heart went missing when he ducked a Wlad rematch twice. But yeah he has the heart of a champion, I mean he only defended his title zero times. What a champ.

 

Keep deflecting....

 

Lucky Wlad didn't sue his azz. Ducking and a roid positive. Haymon/Wilder cried all the way back to Bama and the courts over 0.0001 of Medonium. They got sfa except a lawyers bill.

 

Povetkin is less risk but also less reward. AJ would probably be wiser to duck Povetkin if he was going to duck anyone.

I'm sure the Joshua Wilder fight will happen. I think both camps just need to grow up a bit first.

The huge, massive elephant in the room is just how much more money Joshua earns than Wilder does. You can't escape from it, you can't hide from it, it's there staring everyone in the face and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

But even with that obstacle, both teams should be able to get past it and get the damn fight made.

The problem was just too much big talk before they even got to negotiating. They started so far apart it made it almost impossible to get the deal made. It would have meant too much pride being swallowed and too much backpedalling.

I think on AJ's side it was more Hearn than anything. Eddie made too many grandiose speeches about AJ now being in charge and able to call all the shots etc..

Joshua himself I don't think would have been too fussed about 5% or 10% of the pot going the other way. Hearn on the other hand...

It'll happen as long as they keep their belts, we just need to be patient. I get why some hardcore boxing fans don't like AJ, I definitely get why people don't like Hearn. But I just don't get how anyone can criticise Joshua for the fights he has taken. Thinking he is ducking Wilder is absurd.

 

Finkel was asked after Wilder won the WBC title if he would be pushing for a Klitschko fight for all the belts.

Wilder was 29 years old, 33-0 and apparently was a PROSPECT, Yes that's right a PROSPECT and he wasn't ready and shouldn't be rushed.

“Look, (Wilder) is a baby winning the title. It was his first title fight, they'll be a time for unification, they'll be a time for all those things, he could go and Povetkin (the No. 2 contender) in Russia and make $10 million,” Finkel said to the Tuscaloosa News. “It's not the right thing yet. Give him a couple of fights, maybe bring something back to Alabama. Let him develop just like any other athlete. They don't take someone who is a great college prospect and throw him right in. And this kid is a great prospect.”


At this moment in time, AJ is 28 years old, 21-0, he fought Klitschko, had more unifications than Wilder (Wilder has had 0 in 40 fights) and AJ has fought far more Top 10 fighters than Wilder.

So although it gets boring, it's a drag and it feels like it's just never ending..

Take comfort in the fact these people are absolutely ridiculous and never forget the hypocrisy and double standards of Finkel, Wilder and the Wilder fanboys who defend Finkel and Wilder, believe everything they say and believe it's OK to slaughter AJ and Hearn for doing far more after 21 fights than Wilder and Finkel have done in 40.

 

Non issue. When and if Joshua & Wilder want to fight they will - that's if they're both still champions.

Unification fights take precedence over mandatories.

If Wilder beats Fury I think the Joshua fight could be tougher to make b/c he will likely demand 50/50 and possibly also home country hosting rights.

If that's unacceptable to Fast Eddie & AJ, the fight doesn't get made. Not next up anyway.

All of this discussion is premature though. Joshua & Wilder may be rematching Povetkin & Fury next April.

 

It's not less reward he still will receive around over 10-15 million for fighting Povetkin.

Remember this is Wembley which will sell around 90,000. That brings in a lot of money. Obviously AJ will not receive all that as it will be split between his managers, coaches and promoters etc but he is still earning enough to be very comfortable to make a career out of which he will do. I said last week the plan is Povetkin, Whyte, Pulev or miller and then whatever credible corpse they can find to sell to the masses.

David Price should have dealt with Povetkin had he fought according to a gameplan and if Price vs AJ was headlining Wembley instead of Wilder (which was a real possibility), would you be trying to justify it?

The huge elephant in the room isn't about how much AJ is earning. This is boxing not the stock exchange. So I don't really care but if you want to go down that road, Wilder now has the potential to earn more than AJ earned in one single fight when he fights Fury. But again that's neither here or there because at the end of a fighter's career we don't look back and judge them on how big their bank accounts were we discuss who they fought and didn't fight.

Mike Tyson was one of the richest Heavyweights in his era and when we discuss his career we rarely speak about the millions which he squandered. It's mostly what he did in the ring and how he conducted himself out of it.

And this is why there is so much drama with this love triangle situation between fury wilder and AJ, because we want to see them all fight each other and only two of them are interested in doing that. I'd also include Ortiz who everyone seems terrified of fighting.

And then you have the Heavyweight world champion of the world threatening to freeze out other champions, talking about selling his soul for 50 million then it's not hyperbolic to state that this is the biggest duck in boxing history. And not only the biggest but the most shameless. I have never seen or heard a heavyweight or any boxer or any professional turn down 50 ****ing million and come out with coward statement after coward statement refusing to travel, asking fans to fight, and saying he will fight him when he feels he's in the best possible position to win.

Do you realise how much money 50 is?

We don't need to play armchair accountants to realise that is ridiculous amount of money for 36 minutes of work and you can't spin it to say that it makes more sense to make it over a period of several fights, when anything can happen in boxing from a loss to an injury to your stock going down overnight.

And that is the biggest reason why AJ has disgraced himself and those belts and why even his own countrymen Legends are calling him a ducker who's hiding behind his slave master Hearn who managed to convince him to turn down that kind of money which he has never once come close to earning in one single fight.

I blame AJ more than Hearn because he could have put his foot down and pushed for Eddie to make the fight, but he didn't want it. That is clear

Wilder did want the fight otherwise they wouldn't have offered that ridiculous sum of money and wouldn't be fighting Fury. It's not like he's fighting a old man or a bum instead of fighting AJ, he's fighting the real lineal champion ffs.

In my opinion and the opinion of real boxing fans there is no grey area here, there's no sitting on the fence, there's no ''maybe both teams are to blame'' it's cut and dry, a baby could see there's one coward fighter and one ducking team behind all this and that's AJ and duckroom.

 

Joshua vs. Whyte II in April...

 

don't count those chickens yet...

 

Fair play for the lengthy reply. Wilder is more reward for Joshua than Povetkin. Even more money and of course the WBC belt.

Price vs AJ wouldn't have been great. Price vs Povetkin shouldn't really have happened. The heavyweight division is shallow which is why guys like Price can be close to the top without really doing much. Povetkin deserves another shot at a world title though. This will probably be his last shot.

50 million dollars is a lot of money. Although maybe not quite so much to Joshua as it is to me and you. By all reports he has already earned more than that. I don't think he needs to worry about money like other boxers. He is already set for life barring some incredibly stupid decisions. All Hearn's talk of Joshua now calling all the shots looks ridiculous if they are immediately cowed by $50m and concede every point to team Wilder.

It's weird how Joshua has taken more challenges than any other heavyweight in recent memory, then all of a sudden turned into a ducker and coward when it comes to Wilder. Funny how the likes of Parker, Klitschko, Pulev, Povetkin get made immediately, but then Wilder doesn't get made immediately. Joshua's last unification fight was 5 months ago, Wilder hasn't managed one unification fight in all his years as a champion.

Like I said, there was just too much big talk from either side for anyone to back down. Even now I don't like this whole thing from Hearn saying that he has sent Wilder a contract signed by Joshua to fight in April. I'm sure it's true (as sure as you can be with Hearn), but for Wilder to sign that now makes him look weak. Makes him look like he's dancing to Hearn's tune.

I don't think Wilder helped with his social media antics either. Between them they all made the situation untenable. I'm hoping both sides have a bit more humility the next time they arrive at the negotiating table.

I guess I just can't believe anyone who has followed this sorry story can come to the conclusion that this is AJ ducking. I'm just putting it down to you having a deep-rooted dislike for Joshua, and that we'll have to agree to disagree. And I'm sure you'll be proven wrong when AJ vs Wilder square off, which I'm sure will be in 2019 should they both win their fights.

 

Yes it's very funny how all those fights get made with no problem yet as soon as it comes to Wilder the excuses come in as to why they can't offer a percentage split.

That's the only difference between the other fights. Parker was offered 33% and the the best they could offer Wilder was a flat fee and even when he accepted they kept changing the conditions on the contract. This is irrefutable and not to mention the endless lies and contradictions it is clear what team do not want the fight.

That's not even taking into account the fact that they are on record stating they don't feel ready for Wilder and that he will only fight him when he feels in the position to win. Just what the hell do you think that means? I'll give you a clue - Canelo did a similar thing with GGG.

The excuses and endless ducking statements are too obvious and too long to reel off and it's been explained in depth endlessly on here that I'm not going to go through it all over again as it's much too tiresome and boring.

Lastly I will say It's nothing to do with any dislike I have for AJ. If wilder or fury were coming out with pathetic ducking statements and excuses they'd be called out on it without hesitation. I just find it unbelievable when they've admitted it through their own mouths that they don't really want the fight, that somehow people manage to pin the blame on Wilder.

I've never seen anything like it!