Comments Thread For: DiBella: Hearn Wouldn't Make Joshua-Ortiz; Don't Question Wilder

[LacedUp]

Dibella is right. Hearn should just focus on AJ that's his cash cow. Hearn shouldn't worry about Wilder especially if he's not planning on making the fight this year. And if Hearn is concerned about how much Wilder is making does that mean he's going to play fair during negotiations when it comes time to make the AJ-Wilder fight?? Will he be okay with 60/40 or 50/50??

But he's said again and again they are planning on making it this year and the plan is for AJ to be undisputed this year.

So quite clearly he has an interest in Wilder's popularity.

[LacedUp]

How anyone can think Dibella speaks anything other than complete bollocks is beyond me.

Is he somehow trying to say AJ - who literally has welcome and is welcoming allcomers from his 15th fight - wouldn't fight Ortiz?

Like Ortiz is 1/10th of the fighter Klitschko is.

Delusion.

[LacedUp]

Wilder’s opponent in his upcoming fight is better than Joshua’s.

One undefeated world champion who has 3 good names on his record vs one undefeated journeyman beater who's last decent win was in 2014?

What world are you living in.

[N/A]

Oh good another winner !

"Wilder was knocking out so many of his opponents so quickly that he needed more fights just to get rounds under his belt. "

Yea the division was so scarce he was left with David Long ,his 20th fight to Nick Firtha his 30th fight !

Yep thats why he wasnt getting rounds in you cracked the code ........

Are you going to apologize for calling me a liar, an idiot, etc, for correctly posting rankings from January 2015 and then posting rankings from eight months later to try to trick people into thinking you were telling the truth?

[JRB123]

Congratulations to AJ. Maybe he's the greatest fighter that ever lived. Last I checked, out of 7 billion people on Earth, Finkel was free to bring Wilder along at whatever pace he thought was best for Wilder's development. I'm not aware of any contract stating that out of 7 billion people on Earth, Wilder's development must exactly match the pace of AJ.

But since AJ is so great, and Wilder sucks so much, AJ should fight him, make a ton of money, and take his belt.

He doesn't have to match the pace of AJ, but Wilder had the opportunity to take on better competition on multiple occasions and passed on it.

Funny that Wilder was not barking about fighting Joshua until after AJ beat Charles Martin.

[N/A]

He doesn't have to match the pace of AJ, but Wilder had the opportunity to take on better competition on multiple occasions and passed on it.

That doesn't seem like a fair assessment of the situation. Wilder has only been the champion three years. He won the title in convincing fashion against the #2 heavyweight in the world. A win this community (populated by AJ fanboys), tries to pretend was a tomato can, which is a complete rewriting of history.

Wilder defended against Duhaupas, who may not have been considered top 10 at the time, but he ended up being much better than people realize. After Wilder knocked him out, he ended up knocking out Helenius and became silver world champion. He then spent six months in the TBRB top 10. That should be considered a quality win for Wilder. Not dismissed as a tomato can.

I admit beyond that, Wilder's resume is thin. But we can't ignore that he signed to fight Povetkin and flew overseas, only for Povetkin to cheat (and then cheat again).

We can't ignore that he signed to fight King Kong in a voluntary, when nobody wanted to fight him. Only for King Kong to get caught cheating again.

Wilder is so desperate for a big fight, he's fighting King Kong anyway. At this point, I don't see how any of the criticisms hold water. It's not Wilder's fault others cheated and now he's making a voluntary defense against the #3 heavyweight in the world, a guy everybody avoided. The biggest "high risk/low reward" guy in the entire division.

So if we're being fair, we should be praising Wilder. The problem is that nobody on this site is interested in unbiased discussion. Everybody loves AJ, so they **** talk Wilder. Plain and simple. AJ has a giant fan base, they don't want to believe that he's ducking Wilder, so they go through all of these mental gymnastics to discredit Wilder.

Now, I'm not saying AJ is ducking. I don't consider it a duck to say to Wilder, let's fight in 8 months when the fight will be worth so much more money. BUT, clearly, Hearn isn't in a rush to fight Wilder. Clearly, Hearn considers him to be very dangerous. He wanted Parker first because Parker is safer. That should not be a controversial statement, but around here it is. We're dealing with a bunch of brainwashed zombies.

Funny that Wilder was not barking about fighting Joshua until after AJ beat Charles Martin.

Why is that funny? AJ could have been Wilder's mandatory, but preferred an easier fight against Martin. Why would Wilder have been calling out a random dude without a belt?

[lion33lit]

Well said, Lou Dibella! Joshua wants wheel barrels full of cash & photo shoots, Deontay wants legacy......

[Pennsauken1]

That British Bum already ducked Ortiz, Wilder will take the challenge like a Real champ.

[Dle]

Actually, Hearn didn’t want to take that risk of a “mediocre at best”mandator might beat his potential cash cow. Mind you, Hearn just labeled the aging Ortiz ‘high risk, low reward, just yesterday.

[JRB123]

That doesn't seem like a fair assessment of the situation. Wilder has only been the champion three years. He won the title in convincing fashion against the #2 heavyweight in the world. A win this community (populated by AJ fanboys), tries to pretend was a tomato can, which is a complete rewriting of history.

For starters, Stiverne was not rated higher than Povetkin or Tyson Fury and the fact is that the fight came in a circumstance when Stiverne had fought one time per year in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Wilder had fought 12 times in that fight period. Having a one year layoff is significant for any fighter regardless of the level or weight class.

On top of that, Stiverne had fought once between the first Wilder fight and the rematch.

I'm not saying that Stiverne was a tomato can, but he was not elite. His resume is evidence of that.

Wilder defended against Duhaupas, who may not have been considered top 10 at the time, but he ended up being much better than people realize. After Wilder knocked him out, he ended up knocking out Helenius and became silver world champion. He then spent six months in the TBRB top 10. That should be considered a quality win for Wilder. Not dismissed as a tomato can.

Not considering him a can, but his win over Charr before fighting Wilder is better than the Helenius win. Even with that, if we are going to give credit to Wilder for that win, then Miller should get credit should he beat Duhaupas in April.

I admit beyond that, Wilder's resume is thin. But we can't ignore that he signed to fight Povetkin and flew overseas, only for Povetkin to cheat (and then cheat again).

We can't ignore that he signed to fight King Kong in a voluntary, when nobody wanted to fight him. Only for King Kong to get caught cheating again.

Here is the part where we divert.

Signing to fight Povetkin looks good, but upon a further glimpse that was done on circumstances that were in Wilder's favor. First, as the WBC champ he is supposed to defend the belt against the mandatory challenger within 12 months. He could have fought Povetkin in September of 2015 but did not, and was supposed to fight him in January 2016 but didn't. The Povetkin fight against Wach could have been scrapped if the Wilder fight was made. Next, when that fight was in the negotiation period, Wilder and his team couldn't come to an agreement with Ryabinsky and Povetkin, which forced it to go to a purse bid. Wilder/DiBella/Haymon had no problem with Wilder going to Russia for that fight because Ryabinsky was willing to pay him 4.5 million to fight Povetkin. Haymon/DiBella/Finkel hasn't paid Wilder more than 1.5 million in a fight before or since.

He signed to fight Ortiz because fans were calling for him to fight someone within the top ten. Otherwise he would have had no problem chillin fighting voluntary after voluntary until the AJ fight is available. The whole "Ortiz is being avoided" bit is overblown. I'll get into that in a bit.

Wilder is so desperate for a big fight, he's fighting King Kong anyway. At this point, I don't see how any of the criticisms hold water. It's not Wilder's fault others cheated and now he's making a voluntary defense against the #3 heavyweight in the world, a guy everybody avoided. The biggest "high risk/low reward" guy in the entire division.

So if we're being fair, we should be praising Wilder. The problem is that nobody on this site is interested in unbiased discussion. Everybody loves AJ, so they **** talk Wilder. Plain and simple. AJ has a giant fan base, they don't want to believe that he's ducking Wilder, so they go through all of these mental gymnastics to discredit Wilder.

Now, I'm not saying AJ is ducking. I don't consider it a duck to say to Wilder, let's fight in 8 months when the fight will be worth so much more money. BUT, clearly, Hearn isn't in a rush to fight Wilder. Clearly, Hearn considers him to be very dangerous. He wanted Parker first because Parker is safer. That should not be a controversial statement, but around here it is. We're dealing with a bunch of brainwashed zombies.

Why is that funny? AJ could have been Wilder's mandatory, but preferred an easier fight against Martin. Why would Wilder have been calling out a random dude without a belt?

He's desperate because of what I mentioned earlier. There was talk about a fight with Whyte but Wilder added stipulations to it. The fight with Ortiz is because fans were asking for it, not because Ortiz is avoided.

Ortiz was contending for the WBA title back in 2016 and defeated Tony Thompson 3 months in that year. I was in attendance and Oscar was boosting him up as the "boogeyman" in the division and the "most avoided fighter" even though when he was supposed to fight in the WBA "tournament" he passed on fighting Ustinov while under Golden Boy and did not fight any contender within the WBA rankings while the WBA was running around with its proverbial head cut off trying to make a fight for their belt. That's partially why they added on the WBA belt to the AJ-Klitschko fight. Not only they wanted someone to be their champ, they wanted someone with a following to be champ.

After the fight, some people were calling for AJ to fight Ortiz while ignoring that he had a mandatory defense due for the IBF. If he went ahead and fought Ortiz, he would have been stripped of the IBF belt...so the talk about AJ "ducking" Ortiz is unfounded.

On top of that, in 2012 Jennings wanted a fight with Wilder in Philly but Wilder and his team passed on it even with a 50-50 split offered. Wilder ended up fighting Kelvin Price...

Fast forward to 2015, after Wilder won the title. There was talk about Wilder fighting Jennings after Wilder's win over Duhaupas, but that also was scrapped because Wilder's team was not even considering Jennings as an opponent. What ended up happening? Wilder defended against Artur Szpilka, who lost to Jennings the year before. Jennings ended up fighting Luis Ortiz...that "avoided" fighter that people were talking about.

Eddie Hearn said that it would make more sense for Joshua-Wilder to take place in 2019 but it will take place this year because the fans want it this year. Joshua wants the unification to happen this year so he's ready. The Parker fight got done because it was an easier fight to make. We didn't hear Parker make the demands that Wilder did, and when the fight was signed we saw how much mutual respect both Joshua and Parker had for each other.

Now, could AJ have become Wilder's mandatory? Probably, but the situation that went down between Wilder and Povetkin may have raised questions on if Wilder would have pursued a fight with Joshua within the year mandated by the WBC.

The calling out thing happens whether a fighter has a belt or not. What I'm scratching my head over is why didn't Wilder answer to the challenges of Jennings, Tyson Fury (before both won world titles) and others? That I have yet to get the answer to.