Barry Hearn Wants Joshua To Wait On Wilder Fight

According to the founder of Matchroom Boxing, Barry Hearn, Anthony Joshua should wait till 2019 to fight Deontay Wilder in a world heavyweight unification fight.

Even though the elder Hearn feels this way, he promised to stay out of Joshua’s hair when he meets WBO, IBF, IBO and WBA champion Joshua on May 8th with his son Eddie.

Wilder, made the move to make a $50 million offer to Joshua directly for a fight later in 2018.

“I have a meeting with Anthony Joshua on Tuesday with Eddie, before Eddie goes off to New York,” Hearn said earlier this week.

“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… 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.”

Hearn told Joshua that he needs to “capitalize” on the opportunity properly, and play the long game.

Barry Hearn said: “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 capitalize 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.”

Original Story: Boxing Scene