My Theory: Why Joshua vs Wilder Must be Delayed

By Scoop Malinowski

Both the Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder camps did their fair share of saber rattling for the last three months. But it was all media hype to help cultivate drama, buzz and chatter for the long term plan of building Joshua vs Wilder into a the mega superfight of the NEXT decade. You read that right… NEXT decade, not in 2018 or 2019.

My theory is that AJ promoter Eddie Hearn knows and accepts that Wilder’s bosses Al Haymon and Shelly Finkel don’t want the fight now, because they can’t afford to lose it now. But Hearn also understands that he needs an American opponent for AJ down the road to cash in on American money with AJ.

I suspect there is a mutual accord to continue the media squabbling to let the fight marinate for a few years, as many as four or five years. Because Wilder is totally unknown still here in USA. The Joshua vs Wilder superfight could be bigger than Pacquiao vs Mayweather in five years if Wilder can be built up, which is the challenging job Haymon and Finkel need to take care of. Hearn doesn’t need Wilder now. Hearn knows he can keep filling soccer stadiums in Europe for years to come – and the big jackpot fight at the end of the rainbow is with Wilder (if, of course, Tyson Fury bungles his career again).

Boxing learned a valuable lesson – that Floyd Mayweather and Al Haymon’s five year duck plan of Pacquiao – and the five years of media bickering raised the value of the Pac vs Floyd fight into the biggest money fight in boxing history by far. It would be a very wise move to apply (or invest) the same five year duck plan scheme to Joshua vs Wilder which could raise the profit bar even well beyond the astronomical numbers that Floyd and Pacquiao generated in 2015.