Eddie Hearn came under fire from a middleweight contender over his plan for heavyweight Anthony Joshua to rematch Dillian Whyte.
Hours after Whyte expressed his dismay at how negotiations were going, Tureano Johnson weighed in with his stark view.
Once the number one contender to Gennadiy Golovkin, Johnson aired his thoughts on a possible second helping of Joshua vs Whyte II.
Heavyweight roasting
“Rematch! How the hell did he [Whyte] get another fight [after being knocked out by AJ], Eddie Hearn?
“Don’t you have any other washed-up heavyweight? We don’t want to see Whyte again. We know you’re just getting AJ easy fights, but use another average fighter!”
Hearn didn’t respond to Johnson’s plea for Joshua to fight somebody else on the back of defeated Jermaine Franklin in a drab affair last April.
Joshua had been holding out for a December battle with Deontay Wilder. However, Skill Challenge denied any offer had ever been made.
Wilder is now looking to face Andy Ruiz Jr. in a final WBC heavyweight title eliminator. The Joshua fight is as far away as it’s ever been.
The smart money is on Joshua vs Whyte II at the O2 Arena on August 12 – if negotiations can be finalized. According to Whyte, there is still work to do.
Joshua vs Whyte 2
“They said it was going to be a standard contract. It’s not. There’s a lot of things in the contract now that they didn’t say was going to be in it,” Whyte told talkSPORT.
“It’s like this, he said, ‘We’re gonna send a simple contract.’ – Then they sent a very complicated contract with a lot of hoops and a lot of hooks to hook me in.#
“I don’t want that. I want a simple contract, a simple fight. The winner moves on and has a big fight in Saudi Arabia.
“They’re trying to put a rematch clause in there that ties me up for a year and messes everything up. I’m not interested in that.
“I just want a straightforward fight, the winner moves on, and that’s it.”
Whyte hopes a win over Joshua leads to facing Wilder himself.
“It is about the opportunity. But with the rematch involved – if I beat him, I don’t get an opportunity [to face Wilder possibly]. I’ve got to wait and fight Joshua again.”
Whatever happens, Joshua is unlikely to get any closer to regaining his world titles by facing Whyte again over the summer.
