Anthony Joshua is saying once again that he’ll give Deontay Wilder a flat fee to face him on April 13 in a heavyweight unification fight at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Joshua says he’s willing to give WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) a guarantee of twice his highest pure with incentives if he faces him next April. Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) says states that he’s going to get his hands on Wilder’s World Boxing Council title one way or another. Just how he’s going to do that without Wilder losing to someone else is the big question.
Some boxing fans believe that Joshua’s sudden interest in talking up a fight between him and Wilder is all for show, as he clearly know that the American is planning on fighting rematch against Tyson Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) next in early 2019 to clear up their rematch 12 round split draw from their December 1 fight on SHOWTIME pay-per-view at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. By Joshua setting the April 13 date at Wembley Stadium, and telling the boxing fans that he absolutely wants the Wilder fight on that date, it gives the impression that he wants the fight. However, Joshua had a chance to fight Wilder in September, but he chose to quickly end the negotiations and fight 39-year-old Alexander Povetkin on September 22. Wilder had talked about wanting to get in the ring afterwards to try and sell his fight with Joshua, but he wasn’t allowed to do that for some reason. Things like that give the boxing public that Joshua isn’t serious about wanting to fight Wilder, and this latest challenge by him is just acting on his part. With Joshua setting a date on April 13 that Wilder won’t be available, it means he’s safe from having to fight him.
“In April, he needs to make a decision whether he wants to step up and fight me in England,” Joshua said to DAZN about his desire to make a fight with Deontay Wilder on April 13. “That’s his decision, because he and [Tyson] Fury want a rematch. But if not, we got other options. No problem. The ball is in Wilder’s court. April 13 at Wembley, come see me. We’ll get the deal done. I’ll pay you way more than what you ever earned before. I’ll give you all the chance for 4 belts [IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO]. What more can you want?” Joshua said.
The options that Joshua talks about having for his April 13 fight is Dillian Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs). It’s believed by many that Whyte has been the only true option for Joshua for the April 13 date for months. Whyte is with Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing stable, and he’s been chomping at the bit about making the fight between them for the last few months. Hearn seems every bit as interested in making the Joshua vs. Whyte II fight than he does in making the Amir Khan vs. Kell Brook fight for early 2019. When Hearn wants to make a fight, he’s like dog that has a bone that he won’t let go of. Hearn wants the Joshua vs. Whyte rematch, and it’s crystal clear that he’s going to make that fight on April 13.
If Dereck Chisora beats Whyte in their fight next Saturday night on December 22, then Hearn will likely choose his Plan-B option, which most boxing fans believe is American Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller (23-0-1, 20 KOs). Hearn obviously would like to wait a little while longer before he makes the Joshua vs. Miller fight, but he won’t be able to if Whyte is beaten by Chisora next Saturday. Hearn isn’t going to match Chisora up against Joshua, since that would be box office poison. The British boxing public isn’t going to want to see Joshua fight journeyman Chisora (29-8, 21 KOs), because he has too many losses on his record, and he’s been beaten too many times. Hearn having booked the giant 90,000 seat Wembley Stadium means he’ll need to use Miller to face Joshua on April 13 if Whyte gets beaten on December 22. Hearn needs an opponent for Joshua to help fill the giant Wembley Stadium. Hearn sure as heck can’t pencil in Dave Allen as Joshua’s opponent and expect a huge crowd for April 13. You can argue that Hearn probably would stick Allen in with Joshua if he thought the British boxing fans would buy tickets for the fight in high numbers, but clearly they wouldn’t. The fans would be totally turned off by that mismatch, just as they would in a fight between Joshua and Chisora.
”He does,” Joshua said about Wilder deserving more than just a flat fee for a fight against him. ”That’s why we can say we’ll guarantee you a flat fee, and we’ll look at an upside as well. We’re going to give him a flat fee, which is going to get him interested, and we’re going to incentive-size him as well. So he can start running his mouth and promoting the fight like he does,” Joshua said.
It’s alarming and pathetically sad that Joshua is still talking about wanting to offer Wilder just a flat fee for their unification fight. Hearn recently had distanced himself from the $15 million flat fee that he originally offered Wilder for a fight with Joshua in September. Hearn had been talking about wanting to give Wilder a percentage deal from 30 to 50% of the loot for a fight against Joshua. That’s why it’s shocking that Joshua is now talking of wanting to give Wilder just a flat fee for the April 13 fight. Joshua says he’ll add incentives for pay-per-view upside, which obviously means that if Wilder works his tail off in promoting the heck out of the fight, he can share in some of the upside. Just how much is unclear. Wilder being offered a flat fee in a fight that no one really knows how much it’ll generate sets him up to potentially get a really bad deal. For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that Hearn’s new flat fee offer to Wilder is $20 million for the Joshua fight on April 13.
So if the fight brings in well over $100 million, Wilder winds up with what amounts to be an 80-20 percentage deal. If the pay-per-view upside is around $5 million, then Wilder ends up with a 75-25 deal. In other words, Wilder would be the equivalent of one of Joshua’s mandatory challengers in terms of the percentage split he’d be getting for the fight. It’s obviously a great deal for Joshua, but a horrendous one for Wilder. Flat fee offers are made to fighters that aren’t popular. When you do see a flat fee offer made from one popular fighter to another, it’s usually a testing thing where the A-side guy makes a stab at tricking his opponent into taking a rotten deal. When you have two popular fighters, the logical deal that is made is a percentage deal that is close to being 50-50. If not 50-50, it’s 55-45. For Joshua to be still making Wilder flat fee offers at this point in the negotiations, it suggests that he’s not seriously interested in making that fight. Why else would Joshua give Wilder a flat fee offer. Even former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Joseph Parker was given a percentage deal for his fight with Joshua last March. If Parker is being given a percentage deal, then why isn’t Wilder for a fight that would generate far more money? Is it greed on Joshua and Hearn’s part or it simply a case of them going through the motions to make the boxing fans think they’re interested in a fight with Wilder on April 13, but in reality they’re not.
”How much did he generate? [for the Tyson Fury fight],” Joshua said. ”But how much did Wilder generate from that [325,000 pay-per-view buys]. I can do a million pay-per-view buys in London, but I’ve got to separate that pot between the undercard, the lighting, and the management. So that money gets divided. I want to know what Wilder put in his pocket, and we can double that,” Joshua said.
It’s believed by some that Wilder’s fight against Fury brought in more money than any of Joshua’s past fights during his career. Even though Joshua has sold more pay-per-views for his fights, the cost is less than it is in the U.S. If Wilder vs. Fury went for around $80 on PPV per household, and Joshua’s fights go for around $20 per household PPV, then obviously the bigger money is coming from the Wilder-Fury fight, you would think. As such, Joshua talking about giving Wilder twice his highest purse in order to get him to accept his flat fee offer, it’s a waste of tie and breath on his part.
It’s not just about Wilder for me. It’s about that [World Boxing Council heavyweight title] belt,” Joshua said. ”I’m going to get my hands on that belt one way or another. So if it’s not Wilder, I’ll get my hands on the next fighter, because I got another 10 years in me. I’m 29. I’m 30 next year. I still got a lot of time left in the tank. I got 22 fights now, so I’m still fresh. So I’m just looking forward to cementing my legacy for the long run. These guys have been professionals for 10 years. He has 40 fights. How much time does he have left? It’s more important for him to fight me now than later, because he ain’t got no legs,” Joshua said.
Joshua says he’s going to get his hands on Wilder’s WBC belt one way or another. Joshua sounds like his feet aren’t on the ground. He doesn’t seem to be entertaining the thought that Wilder could poleaxe him with a right hand the way 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko did in 2017 at Wembley Stadium. It’s an accident that Joshua even made out of the fight without getting knocked out. If Wladimir had any sense at all on the night, he would have gone after Joshua immediately and knocked him out instead of choosing at that moment to box him. That’s what Wladimir did. He decided that it would be a good idea to box Joshua instead of emptying his tank to finish him off the way fighters are taught to do. Wladimir went against the training that fighters re given to finish off their hurt opponents, and he ended up losing the fight. Wladimir forgot where he was in fighting in Joshua’s home country of England, and he didn’t realize that he would recover eventually, get his second wind, and be motivated by the cheering from the crowd.
”I made sure we booked the venue, and booked the date,” Joshua said about his promoter Eddie Hearn booking Wembley Stadium for April 13 in hopes of getting Wilder to agree to fight on that date. ”We started conversations before [the [Wilder-Fury fight] Fury. They said they didn’t want to talk to us. They wanted to talk to us after the fight, which is fine. I understand that. Now that the fight is done, they’re saying, ‘We got to push Anthony Joshua. We don’t want to fight him. We want to fight Tyson Fury.’ I thought it was all about one face, one name. Now you got the opportunity to fight me, and make that dream a reality. Why are you going to turn it down?” Joshua said.
Joshua makes himself seem like an angel by saying he booked Wembley Stadium and picked the April 13 date in an apparent effort to accommodate Wilder to make it easier for him to agree to the fight. But what that really looks like, at least to this writer, is a unilateral move on Joshua’s part to try and dictate to Wilder when and where the fight will take place. In other words, Joshua is playing his A-side hand to the hilt in picking the date and the location for the fight. If Joshua and Hearn wanted to work on negotiations with Wilder and his management in a bilateral way, they would have asked them, ‘What date is good for you, and where would you like the fight to date place? Is U.S good or would you like it to take place in the UK or a neutral venue?’ Hearn and Joshua picking the date and the venue for the Wilder fight, and then saying, ‘Here it is. Now sign the blank flat fee contract that we’ve sent you.’ It just comes across to come boxing fans like Joshua is playing his A-side to the hilt, and it’s even going to bother sitting down and discussing dates, venues and a percentage split. You can argue that Joshua and Hearn haven’t been negotiating with Wilder and his management. They’ve been dictating to the.
”The ball is now in his court to take my offer and challenge me for my belts,” Joshua said about Wilder. ”Until then, I can’t really do much. I can’t make Wilder’s mind up for him.”
There is no real offer from Joshua. All he’s talking about is giving Wilder flat fee offers, and that’s not a good way to get the fight done unless the flat fee is in the ball park of $50 million. If the Joshua-Wilder fight can generate over $100 million, then why would Wilder ever agree to a flat fee less than $50 million? Hearn’s initial $15 million flat fee offer made to Wilder isn’t going to be bumped up by $35 million to get it to $50 million. That’s not realistic. At best, Hearn will likely bump it up by $5 million to $20 million for the flat fee. That comes out to an 80-20 split for Joshua if the fight brings in $100 million. It’s a great deal for Joshua, but just a gawd awful one for Wilder. Joshua should probably leave the discussions bout purses to Hearn instead of him leaking the information to the media. All that does is trigger Wilder, and harden his stance about not wanting to take the fight with Joshua on April 13.
With Joshua talking freely to the media about only wanting to give Wilder a flat fee, which equates to him not being worthy of a percentage deal, then it’s going to make Deontay dig his feet in the sand and strengthen his desire to fight a rematch with Fury in early 2019. Why would Wilder want to make a deal with Joshua if all he’s being given is a flat fee? Wilder isn’t being treated like he’s equal in worth in the negotiations.
“My gut feeling is, I knockout Deontay Wilder when I fight him, but my gut feeling about who I fight [on April 13] is, I don’t know, because it’s down to these guys. I can’t dictate it,” Joshua said. ”Why I say I knockout Deontay Wilder is because I control that. I let my hands go, but what happens between who wins and what they decide to do with their careers…that’s why I say the ball is in their court. It’s completely up to them what they want to do,” Joshua said.
Joshua’s prediction of a knockout of Wilder, when asked what his gut feeling is about whether the Joshua-Wilder fight will happen on April 13, sounds almost like a knee-jerk response from an angry child that isn’t going to get his way. It’s up to Joshua and Hearn if they truly want the fight with Wilder. If they do, then should be offering him a percentage deal, not a flat fee. That’s a ham-handed way to negotiate a fight, and it shows that the interest on Joshua and Hearn’s side in the Wilder fight isn’t there. If Wilder isn’t worthy of a percentage deal, then that shows that Joshua doesn’t want the fight with him at this time. If Hearn and Joshua are serious about wanting Wilder to take the fight on April 13, then you can argue they should start the negotiations with a percentage deal offer that is close to what Wilder is asking for.
Since Wilder wants a 50-50 split, then it would be logical for Hearn’s initial offer to Wilder to start at 55-45. That makes the most sense if Hearn wants to get the deal with Deontay done straightaway for April 13 without watching him take the rematch with Fury, which will obviously increase his popularity even more than it is now. If Wilder gets more popular, he could start asking for the bigger percentage split for the Joshua fight. If that happens, Joshua and Hearn will be kicking themselves for not giving him the 50-50 flat fee that he was asking for.