Veteran promoter and Matchroom chairman Barry Hearn believes the massive heavyweight fight between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder should not go ahead just yet.
While his son Eddie, who is in charge of promoting Joshua, has stated publically that the fight should definitely happen next because of the upcoming mandatory challengers. However, Hearn senior comments that the fight would do much bigger and better figures in 2019.
“I have a meeting with Anthony Joshua on Tuesday with Eddie, before Eddie goes off to New York.
“The decision is numbers – it’s a numbers game and it’s nothing to do with boxing. It’s purely to do with ‘that’s what you get if you fight Alexander Povetkin, that’s what you get if you fight Jarrell Miller, that’s what you get if you fight Deontay Wilder in England, that’s what you get if you fight Deontay Wilder in America. And I don’t fight, so it’s your call because you’re the guv’nor, you’re running heavyweight boxing.’
“The Deontay Wilder fight, if I was Anthony Joshua, I’d be leaving that for a little while.
“Not because I’m worried about Deontay Wilder but at this moment in time maybe I’m looking at 500,000 to 600,000 pay-per-view buyers. In a year, done properly I might be looking at two million, two and a half million pay-per-view buyers,” said Hearn according to Boxing News Online.
The Matchroom chairman is not in charge of Joshua’s decision but he strongly sees this an opportunity to make a massive amount of money and thinks that ‘AJ’ should ‘capitalise on it properly.’
“I said to Anthony: ‘If you had six months to live I would say go and fight Deontay Wilder, take the most money, but if you’re saying to me that you’ve got a legacy plan then I’m saying let’s capitalise on it properly.’
“That’s his decision and his team’s, because I don’t do the boxing. But it’s a credible way of doing business. If you start letting the fans be the matchmaker you’ll end up being skint.
“When you talk about Anthony Joshua, I believe he’s planning another eight years at the top,” added Hearn.