Comments Thread For: Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker To Air Live on Showtime

[Redgloveman]

Having spoken to Higgins directly, he claims negotiations went as follows:

Higgins: 50/50
Hearn: 80/20
Higgins: 60/40
Hearn: 75/25
Higgins 65/35
Hearn: 70/30
Higgins 66.66/33.33
Hearn: 68/32
Deal made at 67/33.

His timeline of events seems to line up with what we know from public statements.

In your version of events though, Higgins drops from 50/50 to 60/40 without ever asking for 50/50 first, which doesn't make any sense. So even if you only want to stick to public statements, you're forced to only selectively include them.

That's so weird, because I've got Higgins over my house for dinner right now and he says that things went pretty much as they looked from that article I posted. He says hi, by the way.

My version of events are set out quite clearly. Higgins doesn't drop from 50/50 because he was never at 50/50 in any serious sense of the word. The only evidence that we have (unless you can provide something else) of him ever mentioning 50/50 is in saying early on
"the starting point is 50/50 but we will accept 60/40."

i.e. "in principle, this should be 50/50, but we'll accept 60/40"

and "we started at 50/50 and now we're all the way down to 65/35" (paraphrasing) during negotiations, which was a negotiating tactic.

At no point have I ever seen reference to a serious offer of 50/50, and I'm certain that if such an offer had been made then it would have been widely publicised.

If Parker had made a serious offer of 50/50 in the same terms as Wilder, would Hearn not have made the same kind of comments as he has done about Wilder?

[N/A]

That's so weird, because I've got Higgins over my house for dinner right now and he says that things went pretty much as they looked from that article I posted. He says hi, by the way.

Would you prefer that I lie and pretend to be a fan?

My version of events are set out quite clearly. Higgins doesn't drop from 50/50 because he was never at 50/50 in any serious sense of the word.

He was as serious about 50/50 as Wilder is. Posturing before the serious negotiations take place.

[Redgloveman]

He was as serious about 50/50 as Wilder is. Posturing before the serious negotiations take place.

Whilst I technically disagree (I think that Wilder's language suggests that he is less willing to negotiate than Higgins and that his position on 50-50 was fairly serious - see the articles I posted earlier) I do agree with you that Wilder is posturing, and I'm sure that Wilder will eventually take the lesser split in order to make the fight.

This is why I find it funny that people on these boards seem obsessed with who's ducking who - when in actual fact it seems that both want the fight and it will almost certainly happen in the next 18 months

[N/A]

Whilst I technically disagree (I think that Wilder's language suggests that he is less willing to negotiate than Higgins and that his position on 50-50 was fairly serious - see the articles I posted earlier) I do agree with you that Wilder is posturing, and I'm sure that Wilder will eventually take the lesser split in order to make the fight.

Wilder's language has been stronger because his position is stronger. Parker ultimately ended up with 33%, Wilder likely ends up with 40%. So he'll have to stick to 50/50 a little longer and posture behind it a little stronger.

[JRB123]

More excuses, first it was the time-slot now its the network : but lets remove any doubt by focusing on the network in question SHOWTIME -- Anthony Joshua vs. Carlos Takam does 334K, compare that to Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence Jr. that did 291K, one can clearly see that there very little difference in interest from the American public from a Spence to a hype-job like Anthony Joshua.

LMAO

Joshua a hype-job? Yet he's more popular worldwide than Deontay Wilder is.

[Kezzer]

Wilder's language has been stronger because his position is stronger. Parker ultimately ended up with 33%, Wilder likely ends up with 40%. So he'll have to stick to 50/50 a little longer and posture behind it a little stronger.

His language is simply because he’s less willing to do the fight. There is no point beating around the bush. He problem wilder has, despite his claims, is Joshua doesn’t need him at the moment really. He can carry on elsewhere and people will just lose interest in wilders fights if that is the case. If Joshua chooses to take wilder it will be exactly that, and if Joshua beats Parker could well have 4 belts to his 1 - an even stronger bargaining position.

Joshua could quite possibly do this scenario (obviously would need to win):

2018:
Parker - spring (cardiff)
Potvetkin - summer (Wembley)
Miller - winter (US)

2019:
Haye - spring (Cardiff)
Fury - Summer (Wembley)
Pulev - Winter (Africa)

2020:

Mandatory - Spring (abroad?)
Whyte2 - Summer (Wembley)


Now that doesn’t mean he will do that route but if by 2020 he has done the above I’m not sure many could really argue as his resume/choices would still be strong. Wilder is the B side and he knows it so in my view until he comes out and offers at least 60/40 in Joshua’s favour he is ducking in my opinion. Parker did it straight away and allowed you to see he was being realistic.

[N/A]

His language is simply because he’s less willing to do the fight.

There is nobody on the planet more willing to fight AJ than Deontay Wilder. Less willing to do the fight? Based on what? He can't force AJ to fight him. AJ's promoter didn't want the fight next, so the fight isn't next. You can't on one hand accurately point out that it's up to AJ to take the fight and then come up with this ****amamie nonsense that someone Wilder is less willing to do the fight. That's total AJ fanboy garbage.

Hearn doesn't want the fight until the end of the year. Hearn doesn't want the fight until the end of the year because he knows Wilder is the biggest threat and you never rush into the biggest threat. Hearn is being a good business man. I'm not knocking him for it. But if it was up to Wilder, the fight would have been happening in March.

if Joshua beats Parker could well have 4 belts to his 1 - an even stronger bargaining position.

Okay, so we have total confirmation that you're an AJ fanboy then. Because nobody credible recognizes the IBO. You can't even stick to the truth that it would be 3 world titles vs. 1. You HAAAADDDD to throw in the unrecognized IBO belt. How can anything else you say be taken seriously after that?

Joshua could quite possibly do this scenario (obviously would need to win):

2018:
Parker - spring (cardiff)
Potvetkin - summer (Wembley)
Miller - winter (US)

So you write a giant post admitting it's AJ delaying the fight, but you're such an AJ fanboy that you still try to somehow blame Wilder for the delays. Unreal.

If Hearn attempts to jump to HBO to duck Wilder and have AJ fight Miller instead, AJ's US debut will completely flop. AJ will have to stay out of America forever if he's not going to fight Wilder.

[Redgloveman]

His language is simply because he’s less willing to do the fight. There is no point beating around the bush

We'll see in the fullness of time. If the fight never ends up happening because Wilder refuses to move from 50/50 then (the majority of) people will call Wilder out for ducking. If it never happens because Joshua makes it impossible, then he will be accused in the same way.

As it is, there are very valid reasons why the fight hasn't happened yet. AJ would want to unify the titles against Wilder rather than Parker, for basic economic reasons. Plus, Wilder is surely considered the greater threat and so the Parker payday should be banked first.

Let's just see how things pan out before we decide whether AJ or Wilder want the fight. At this point there's little serious reason to doubt that the fight will happen.