Matchroom owner Barry Hearn has all but given up on the prospect of Anthony Joshua landing a fight with Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury.
Joshua recently signed a lucrative deal with streaming service DAZN. Whilst Wilder renewed with Showtime and Fury inked with ESPN.
With all three on different platforms, and all three rejecting deals to fight each other at one point, Hearn is at a loss to see where they go from here.
“Wilder rejecting this deal (reportedly $100m from DAZN) shows what he is thinking. Luckily the boxing fans today are smart enough to see that he doesn’t want to get in the ring with Anthony Joshua. Nobody does and that’s the problem,” Hearn told The Daily Mail.
“He can say anything he wants but it’s obvious to everyone now that this is not coming from our side. Wilder has signed up with Showtime and that makes this fight so much harder to make.
“We made this offer to try and make it easier but there you go. It’s a shame because Eddie has been pushing so hard to make the Wilder-Joshua fight but it just isn’t there.
“Wilder has been offered $100 million but he thinks he can earn good money fighting lesser opponents. Then build up the purse to fight Joshua later down the line.
“Fury is the same, he doesn’t want to know. We made him an offer and he turned us down. Neither of them actually want to fight Joshua.
“They are all signed up to different television networks. That is a real issue from the promotional side of things. I just can’t see how these fights happen.
“The problem is none of them want to get beat. No one is blinking. If they get beat everything is off the table. Even for Joshua.
“Fury is in the worst position because he doesn’t have a title so he has no pulling power. I think out of the three of them he is the most beatable,” he added.
SEPARATION
Joshua faces Jarrell Miller on June 1st in New York. Wilder rubberstamped his next fight with Dominic Breazeale for May 18.
Lineal ruler Fury is expected to confirm his date for Las Vegas over the summer in the next few days.
All three are then likely to continue on separate paths until at least 2020.
