Comments Thread For: Hearn: Joshua-Wilder Happens Where Anthony Wants it to Happen

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

NEW YORK Eddie Hearn recognizes that T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas is a viable venue for an Anthony Joshua-Deontay Wilder showdown. Joshua's promoter made it clear, however, that Joshua ultimately will be the man that decides where their huge heavyweight fight eventually takes place. Hearn made that clarification in response to what Shelly Finkel, Wilder's manager, said last weekend about bringing the highly anticipated title unification fight to Las Vegas.
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[mabulkhair]

Rooting for Deontay on this one!!! Whoever lands the big punch first, I believe wins and I hope that's Wilder!!! Wilder's jab is also probably the best in the business. Mark Breland has really been instrumental in Wilder's career.

[wrecksracer]

What if he wants it in his mom's back yard with Mickey Vann as the ref?

[Patsfan bri]

AJ and Hearn do seem reluctant to make this fight happen. Maybe they are scared.

[Boxing Logic]

“So really, my aim, and I feel like Shelly and Al’s aim as well, is to make sure these guys, if they’re involved in a fight of this magnitude and this risk, are rewarded for life."

Why is this always the attitude with modern fights? Two undefeated boxers, but people are talking like they're 60 year olds who have had ten brain injuries, and any one blow could damage them for life after this point. Of course, any blow could damage them, but that's boxing, isn't it? Sometimes tragedies happen in the sport, more often than they happen in real life, but why is the focus on one fight? Even if one of them get knocked out, why do they act like one knockout is the same as dying? Klitschko was at the END of his career, not the start, after being in many hard fights, and he got knocked out vs Joshua once, and ALMOST fought him again. No one said after the knockout, "this is horrible. His life is ruined. I'm glad he got a good payday for all that huge risk he took that ruined his life. If he fights again, he is crazy."

No one said that. So what is the deal? This is just one fight. A tragedy could happen in this fight, just like any other fight, but outside of that, even if one of the boxers gets knocked out, barring a serious tragedy, they probably still will have taken less damage in that fight than they have in sparring the last few years, so why don't promoters focus on that, for example, instead of putting all the responsibility on good fights for the "risk" and overmarinating good fights and ruining the sport as a result? How does that make sense?

Heck we've heard stories about so many guys, whether Wilder or Joshua, getting "knocked out in sparring." So I mean, did they get "set for life" for that? No? How come? How come Al Haymon wasn't there in the gym saying "no no you can't spar that guy, especially not aggressively like I just saw you, because of the risk. I want to make sure you're set for life before doing this spar."

No, no one says that. They are happy to let these sparring wars continue, which fans never get to see, for peanuts, but then when it comes time for the fans to finally see a great fight between two top, prime guys, all these promoters always come out of the woodwork suddenly talking about how the fight can't happen yet because "we have to wait until it's big enough so that both these guys get paid enough that they're set for life after taking this huge risk."

I just wish the modernization of boxing would focus more on how to make boxing safer without actually ruining boxing, instead of focusing only on the supposed "safety measures" or "risk/reward situations" that ruin boxing, but then completely ignoring all the other aspects that actually, most likely, do way more damage to boxers than the one or two megafights they take every half decade do, such as sparring, PEDs, non-performance enhancing drugs, overtraining, taking supplements full of poisonous chemicals used to grow/enhance/make/preserve the supplement, or even the psychological aspect of losing a big fight which can lead fighters to alcohol or losing confidence or self-destructing much more than the physical fight can, sometimes.

Because right now, many fighters are still getting damaged just the same as they always did, due to all those factors, and all we've changed is that now the sport sucks too. It used to be fighters did unsafe things, but at least the sport was great. Now most fighters still do unsafe things, but the sport sucks too. How is that progress? Yes many of them fight easier fights and they make more money on average for those fights, so you can call that safer and better if you want, but there are still so many other factors that are going unaddressed, is it really? Way more boxers are on PEDs now. Some PEDs allow you to keep walking through punches that would otherwise knock you out. Your brain, in its normal state, should already be knocked out, but the PEDs keep you up walking through punches for 12 rounds. I see fighters these days who have barely been in any tough fights, and only fight once or twice per year, who are already punchy around 30 years old. If getting hit in the head is bad for you, imagine how bad getting hit in the head by someone on PEDs while you're hopped up on PEDs is.

I just feel like, overall, their attitude has not made boxing safer, it's only made boxing suck, which, outside of the big PPV fights, has caused fan interest in the sport to wane, which, in turn, has caused less fans to buy tickets and watch the fights, which, in turn, causes many fighters to actually get paid less. So it's worse for the fans, and worse for many fighters. I agree modern boxing has worked out better for some fighters, health and money wise, but for others, it has worked out worse, health and money wise, and in terms of the sport and having a legacy in boxing, and actually competing to be the best, to be a legend, to live out your dreams from when you were a young boxer, modern boxing has wrecked that for all the competitors (some don't care, but many do, look how frustrated Shawn Porter, GGG, and many others have been), and in terms of the fans getting their money's worth, modern boxing has mostly wrecked that as well.

So taking in the overall picture, is that really progress? I definitely want boxers to make more money in the future, and live in a safer, healthier way as both a boxer and a person, but isn't there a better way of doing that than ruining the sport in the name of protecting boxers, while simultaneously ignoring 90% of the things that actually hurt boxers? Just my opinion, please share yours.

[Boxing lives]

Thats fight. Juicin J can decide where the fight takes place. Make the fight now though instead of running like a weight lifting scardy cat. The bigger they are the goofier they quack. Just ask Juicesha. He has fear in his heart for the baddest man on the planet Deontay Wilder.

[chrisJS]

Fight can happen when Wilder gets realistic with his purse demands. 50/50 haha quack quack

[skinnystev]

fight should be bareknuckle in the street in tuscaloosa

[jonnyc420]

Gonna take a page from Wilder fans and accuse him of being on steroids with no evidence to speak of just my dislike of him. Maybe they will realize how dumb they are making themselves look. They just mad their daddy is the b-side and has to wait his turn. Guess they are that hyped to see him get KO'd throwing those ugly looping punches. Short compact left hook ends him in no more than 5.

[Flabble Scrote]

As a neutral but UK born, this fight should happen in Vegas, it will be more epic and make the sport bigger by bringing back mainstream attention to heavyweight championship.
With these 2 characters (could say 3) im pretty sure it will achieve that elusive breakthrough for casuals.
Sure if it's in the UK it's the final nail in Joshua taking over UK airwaves and making Eddie's job there easier for future defences

But I think Eddie and Joshua should reach out and have a sense of history , if this fight is in Vegas it's massive , historic maybe.
But if there's a rematch clause it should be in the opposite place. So whatever.