Wilder Gives Hearn Some Blame for Joshua Loss
WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder has laid it into Anthony Joshua since the British heavyweight was upset at Madison Square Garden on June 1, but Wilder doesn’t put the blame solely on him, but on his promoter, Eddie Hearn, as well.
Andy Ruiz Jr. shocked the world on that night in New York, dropping Joshua four times in a seventh-round TKO to claim the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO championships.
According to Wilder, the way Joshua was built up through his success in England applied more pressure than Joshua could handle in his U.S. debut.
“You just can’t look past guys, and you know, Joshua coming over here, the first time in America. He’s been built up and boost up and hyped so big, you know, and he had to come over here and then fighting a guy you’re looking past and getting knocked out like that,” Wilder said. “Man, you know, to me that was, with everything that was built up in there…I would’ve felt embarrassed. You know, he quit. The guy gave up in the ring. He got dropped four times and gave up.
And he’s supposed to be this big guy, you know, bigger than life. But I blame his promoter for all that. I blame his promoter for building him up like that, always wanting to be on videos, always wanna do the interviews. It’s one thing about this sport, man — you know, having people on the outside, you cannot talk for people.
Joshua and Wilder were long anticipated to collide in an undisputed title fight prior to Joshua’s defeat. There have been at least two failed intense negotiation sessions — one ending over disagreements of small details on a nearly-completed contract and the WBA mandating Joshua face Alexander Povetkin, and another that saw Wilder reject a four-fight, big-money deal with DAZN that would have guaranteed him two fights with Joshua.
Since these times, Wilder and Hearn have been at major odds with one another.
“You’ve gotta be modest and mild with it a little bit. You can’t say so much because you’re not the one gonna be in the ring, fighting, at the end of the night. So not only was Joshua having to back up stuff that he says, but now he [has] to back up the stuff that the promoter so love to have the attention and get in front of every camera that would give him the attention, and talk all this mess. And then, when you get in there with an opponent like Andy when people least expect to see what’s gonna happen or they look at him and judge a book by its cover, and then you get knocked down four times and then you give up? That’s humiliation. And that’s embarrassment, at the top of the class.”
Joshua and Ruiz are slated to have a rematch in either November or December.
Wilder is scheduled to defend his title in a rematch against Luis Ortiz this September before a rematch with Tyson Fury in early 2020.
Original Story: Boxing Scene