Pair will fight on the same card in December and could eventually face each other next year
EDDIE HEARN has revealed why Anthony Joshua’s £40million mega-fight with Deontay Wilder collapsed.
The duo will be fighting in Saudi Arabia on December 23 – but not against each other.
The date was initially set aside for Tyson Fury to take on Oleksandr Usyk in a heavyweight title unifier.
But with the two champions now sparring in February, boxing fans were hopeful of seeing AJ and Wilder finally putting their feud to rest.
Unfortunately for punters, the rivals failed to agree a deal.
And Joshua will now fight Otto Wallin, while Wilder is taking on Joseph Parker.
The two men could eventually meet next year provided they win their respective Christmas clashes.
But American fighter Wilder said this week he was holding out little hope for an eventual battle, having failed to secure a £40m clash with Joshua several years ago.
He said: “It’s his management that have held him back from fighting me because, you know, he’s a fighter.
“It’s been over six years. But there comes a point in time were you’re like ‘forget it’.
“Many times he wanted to fight, he wanted to accept it but his handlers didn’t want it because Joshua is the money-maker for the company. And if he goes down, so does the business.”
Joshua’s promoter Hearn has now confirmed that Wilder did make a £40m proposal “three or four years ago.”
However, an official contract was not sent through afterwards, resulting in the fight collapsing.
Hearn told the Mail: “To be honest with you, that was about three, four years ago. No one came to us with an offer. We received an email.
“I mean, me and Deontay are friends so I don’t to be hard, but we received an email from a Hotmail address saying ‘we will give you 50 million dollars for the fight.
“It was sent to Anthony Joshua directly, he was like ‘what?’ I went back and said ‘send the contract’.
“They went ‘no, you need to agree terms before we send the contract’. I said ‘you don’t agree terms before sending the contract’.
“I didn’t know what the contract looks like at this point. I’m not going to put myself in a position and say ‘yes I agree terms’ and then receive a contract that is just rubbish and you can’t sign it.
“But they never sent it. There’s a lot of reasons why that fight didn’t happen but we have to look to the future.
“We have a big chance of getting the fight but it’s all irrelevant if they don’t win on December 23.”
