JOSHUA FLYING HIGH
And his chasing pack at heavyweight prepare their next moves, writes Elliot Worsell
DON’T just take his promoter’s word for it. It’s now official: Anthony Joshua, the current WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, is wealthy and marketable and perhaps the hottest commodity in boxing.
That’s certainly the picture painted by a Forbes boxing rich list which recognises the Watford man as boxing’s biggest earner for the first time in his five-year professional career. In reaching top spot, Brand AJ surpasses naughty Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and consensus pound-for-pound number one Gennady Golovkin, as well as vindicates the longheld view of Eddie Hearn, his promoter, who has claimed from day one that Joshua would become the biggest star in the sport.
He’s certainly getting there. With an estimated £18m received from a heavyweight unifcation fight with Joseph Parker in March, Joshua, 21-0 (20), now looks for bigger and better, both in terms of legacy and financial reward, and seemingly has an abundance of lucrative options.
For starters, there’s the reported offer of $50m on the table for him to fight WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder this autumn. (Plenty more where that came from, too, should he accept the Wilder challenge and then go on to win the fight and complete the collection of heavyweight belts.)
Interestingly, Wilder, 40-0 (39), also showed up on the Forbes’ list, coming it at number five following a career-high purse of $2.1 million for a heavyweight classic against Luis Ortiz back in March.
Now for an update on Joshua’s proposed showdown with Wilder, otherwise known as the most important fight in boxing today.
The LA Times believe that the fight is likely to end up taking place in America rather than the United Kingdom.
The understanding is that active negotiations – described as “moving in the right direction but very slowly” – concern the guaranteed $50m offer to Joshua made by Wilder’s managers, Al
Haymon and Shelly Finkel. This offer, if reports are to be believed, hinges on the fight being in the US on pay-per-view, shown during US prime time, which would seemingly rule out the possibility of the venue being a UK stadium (during UK prime time).
Should Joshua vs. Wilder land in the United States, early frontrunners to host the fight, according to the LA Times, include Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and the T-mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the race for title shots, meanwhile, Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev might not represent the sexiest fight on the table for Dillian
Whyte, but it may be his next one and it would certainly be a meaningful one.
A win over Pulev in an IBF title eliminator should deliver Whyte the heavyweight title shot he has long craved and throw him back in the mix for a rematch against Anthony Joshua, the only man to defeat him as a professional.
However, Pulev, inactive for over a year, someone who withdrew from a Joshua title shot last October, last week claimed to be unaware of a potential Whyte showdown.
“Until a few days ago nobody had spoken to me about a fight on a particular date,” Pulev, 25-1 (13), said in a statement. “I learned that from the media. My promoters Kalle and Nisse Sauerland are amazing people, but we are rarely in contact and there’s been no mention of a fight with Dillian Whyte. I do want to fight him and I think that he is a perfect opponent for me. But around every fight there are a lot of things that need to be agreed before setting a date.
“It is getting pretty interesting in the heavyweight division. Regarding being the official contender of the IBF, everything is great. I am happy that I will be in the ring again very soon.”
Whyte, 23-1 (17), won’t be panicking. Seemingly blessed with options, he has recently taken to calling out pretty much every heavyweight on the planet, from Russian Alexander Povetkin to novice Joe Joyce to even David Haye, just seconds after Haye’s career seemed to come to an end in defeat to Tony Bellew.
Haye, by the way, says he will let Joyce, his protégé, loose on Whyte whenever he’s ready.
“He’d have my blessing to fight Whyte or [ Jarrell] ‘Big Baby’ Miller next, no problem,” Haye told BN. “I think he’d take both of them apart.
“People are starting to see what Joe Joyce is all about now, but, trust me, they haven’t seen anything yet. He’ll beat all these guys.”
‘YOU’VE SEEN NOTHING YET. JOE JOYCE WOULD BEAT ALL THESE GUYS’