Eddie Hearn has finally admitted receiving and rejecting a bonafide $50 million offer from Deontay Wilder.
Hearn and his charge, Anthony Joshua, had previously denied turning down the deal or, in some instances, refusing to confirm it was even real.
World Boxing News was highly involved in the 2018 discussions with Team Wilder. Gathering several world exclusives at the time, WBN was in consistent contact with Shelly Finkel.
Each time a new development happened, Finkel informed WBN. He was as transparent as they came about what transpired.
All has been documented on WBN. Wilder offered Joshua the chance to headline a Showtime and Sky Sports Pay Per View, which Tyson Fury later accepted.
AJ turned down Deontay Wilder’s $50m offer
Hearn spurned the $50 million guaranteed offer and made a counter-offer of his own, complete with the contract.
Wilder accepted the deal and had Finkel stipulate two minor points before telling Hearn they’d sign.
Within days, Hearn announced Joshua would face Alexander Povetkin as his mandatory challenger.
Finkel was dumbfounded by the move, having been so close to completion. He told WBN that Hearn should have asked for a WBA exception to face Wilder.
WBN later confirmed with WBA President Gilberto Mendoza that Joshua would have been granted the exemption if he’d asked.
Therefore, it was clear Joshua wanted to fight Povetkin rather than Wilder.
Wilder vs Joshua on Showtime
“To be honest with you, that was about three, four years ago. No one came to us with an offer. We received an email [which is still an offer to open discussions,” Hearn told The Daily Mail.
“I mean, me and Deontay are friends [after spending time on a recent flight] so I don’t want to be too hard.
“But we received an email from a Hotmail address saying we will give you fifty million dollars for the fight.
“It was sent to Anthony Joshua. Directly. He was like, ‘What?'”
Joshua’s surprise came after the Briton himself announced in the public domain that he would accept $50 million to face Wilder.
That was his demand, which he ultimately backtracked on.
Hearn continued: “I went back and said send the contract. They said no, you need to agree terms before we send the contract.”
Make it official
The actual circumstance, Finkel told WBN, was that the date and venue were yet to be decided. Finkel, Showtime, and Stephen Espinoza wanted Joshua’s assurance that he would accept the deal and open the talks.
Wanting that in writing is not out of the ordinary. However, Hearn clearly didn’t want to be backed into a corner and potentially lose control of the event to Showtime.
Therefore, he rejected and returned with his own lowball offer of $!5 million for Wilder to travel to the UK.
In a stunning move, Wilder accepted and called Hearn’s bluff. The whole Povetkin debacle then unfolded.
The stone-cold fact of the matter is, if Joshua had signed something official that he would fight Wilder on Showtime for fifty million dollars, which in some cases is standard practice, the fight would have happened in December 2018.
Fury took the deal, a lesser one than Joshua turned down – and the rest is history.
Phil Jay is an experienced boxing news writer.
Editor of World Boxing News since 2010.
