Comments Thread For: Hearn: Unless $50M Offer is Bluff, Wilder's Team Must Meet Me!

[apollocreed]

All the Joshua nut huggers on here sound pretty shook to me. It doesn't seem like Wilder is trying to avoid Joshua imo.

[Holler]

Have you purchased anything major? Car? House? Retail building? Business. The first step is to VERBALLY agree to the price, then preliminary binding paperwork is drawn. All that was asked of Hearn was to VERBALLY or by email agree to the money. That's not a contractual obligation.

I suggest that a house or car purchase is not a good analogy. In a business transaction it's common to meet initially prior to agreement on price or other factors. This allows an exchange of views, builds trust and forms the basis for further discussions.

In this instance one simply has to ask whether the chances of a successful negotiation would be enhanced or diminished by a face to face meeting away from the gaze of the media.

[Ake-Dawg]

What are you talking about?

You Wilder fans embarrass yourselves constantly, as if the 12.5 million wasn’t rejected by Wilder so of course the object of discussion is the offer that was made recently and hasn’t been rejected which is the 50 million.

If Wilder’s team are serious about making this fight then meet Hearn today. It’s not like Wilder is blessed with options, stop messing around.

Thanks for your response to my questions.

[Ake-Dawg]

I suggest that a house or car purchase is not a good analogy. In a business transaction it's common to meet initially prior to agreement on price or other factors. This allows an exchange of views, builds trust and forms the basis for further discussions.

In this instance one simply has to ask whether the chances of a successful negotiation would be enhanced or diminished by a face to face meeting away from the gaze of the media.

This has been done already. You do realize that Dibella and Finkel have worked with Hearn to make other fights. This is either a big fake dance to marinate and build the fight or both sides are making power plays. For the latter, there will be no sit down until common ground is found.

[Redgloveman]

Have you purchased anything major? Car? House? Retail building? Business. The first step is to VERBALLY agree to the price, then preliminary binding paperwork is drawn. All that was asked of Hearn was to VERBALLY or by email agree to the money. That's not a contractual obligation.

Verbal agreement of a contract is still effective - millions of contracts are performed like this every day and I think Wilder could bring a strong claim for breach of contract if Hearn said "I accept your offer of $50m" and then backed out of the deal. I know it sounds crazy for a contract of this magnitude but it's true - look at the Texaco v Pennzoil case for a famous example where the damages awarded by the courts amounted to $9.1 Billion dollars(!)

As far as I've seen, Hearn and Joshua have been quite clear that they are willing to negotiate on the basis of a $50m offer. Joshua has said "Let's roll" and Hearn has said that he wants to see proof of funds and a contract, which (as much as I don't like Hearn) I don't think is unreasonable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFlWizD6YOI

This all seems good to me. The next step is to agree terms. The only thing I have a problem with is the teams NOT meeting. Why would you refuse to meet? As far as I'm concerned, a meeting needs to happen in order to finalise a contract and make the fight happen. Publicly accepting an offer of $50m before any terms have been negotiated would put Hearn in a very weak position from a PR point of view (and he is a promoter after all) as well as a legal one

With regard to the offer and acceptance point I made before, here is the leaked email from Finkel to Hearn in full:


Dear Eddie,
With all due respect you know Al and I for a long time and you know this is not a publicity stunt. I assure you that we’re serious and we would be glad to sit down with you and provide proper security for the funding and work out all the details.
But it all has to start with Anthony Joshua accepting the $50million offer that he asked for, which is also by far the largest guarantee and largest purse any heavyweight champion in history has ever made.
Until then, it would be non-productive to meet. Please have Anthony accept the offer that he asked for and let’s get this fight made.
Thanks, Shelly

The point is, I don't think this email and Wilder's position suggests 'agreeing a price', I think it suggests "accepting an offer". There is a big difference between the two.

talk about buying a house (since this was your example and it's a good one to use). As far as I can see Hearn and Joshua have accepted the $50m in principal - just as you might do if purchasing a $5m mansion. The thing is, if the agent then said - "Great, so please accept our offer there's no need for a meeting until you accept" you would say:

"I want to talk to a lawyer first." Wouldn't you?

Maybe you know a thing or two about property or contract law; in that case you'd say:

I need to get a building survey done first, (essentially I want to know more about what I'm agreeing to buy which is essentially what Hearn is saying)
I need to see the full terms of the contract,
I need to ensure that I can perform my obligations under this contract, etc. etc.

I don't want to take sides in this debate, but Finkel shouldn't be cancelling this meeting. The $50m offer I love. The cancelling of the meeting I'm not so sure about.

My honest opinion is that both the Wilder side and the AJ side are building the fight even now. This **** is getting some serious attention now. Wilder's career likewise is getting some serious attention now (which he has deserved for a long time). The sides are engaged in a PR war which is steadily building the fight more and more. I honestly think both sides take another fight before facing each other, both claiming the other side don't want the fight. All the while we debate and debate about who's ducking who, when in reality the fight only grows and grows in magnitude, making more and more money for the people involved when it eventually takes place.

These guys make huge fights for a living... that's what they do

[Holler]

This has been done already. You do realize that Dibella and Finkel have worked with Hearn to make other fights. This is either a big fake dance to marinate and build the fight or both sides are making power plays. For the latter, there will be no sit down until common ground is found.

Of the two I think the former is more likely as redgloveman has said so well just below your post. I don't discount the possibility the entire exchange has been scripted and in some hidden PowerPoint file sat in Hearn and Haymons shared folder there's scripts, pre prepared put downs and no doubt a devil mask and a Shirley temple wig for when Eddie and Shelley really get down to business...

[Jimmy gold]

Wilder ain’t no draw what does he bring to the table

[umop-ap!sdn]

Haymon is loaded. Period. They have the money. I feel this is team Wilder trying to get around Hearns roadblocks. They likely feel that from past negotiations that Hearn will do all he can to avoid the bout so they offerin the money AJ said he would hands down accept in hopes to have the fight agreed upon without Hearn attempting to thwart it all. Its far too amateurish of a move for this to be a bluff as it would easily make them look silly. Team Wilder is clearly ready for this fight. Deyontays best chance at beating AJ is NOW while AJ is young and an unfinished product, not in a year or two when he is more developed, experienced and battle tested. Hearn bein a baby because they want him to basically take the money and get out of the fkng way but he wants to control every aspect himself.

[umop-ap!sdn]

What are you talking about?

You Wilder fans embarrass yourselves constantly, as if the 12.5 million wasn’t rejected by Wilder so of course the object of discussion is the offer that was made recently and hasn’t been rejected which is the 50 million.

If Wilder’s team are serious about making this fight then meet Hearn today. It’s not like Wilder is blessed with options, stop messing around.

Its like a "been there done that" situ. They KNOW Hearn will only try to negotiste his was around AJ Wilder and try and throw Whyte or some other roadblock into the equation. Same way they invited Wilder to AJ fight with the clear intention of trying to hype the Whyte X Wilder bout. Sp why waste the time before you get an agreement that the purse amount is adequate? All Hearn has to do is accept the amount and than hit the negotiating table to set the terms. Hes not being asked to sign a contract right now.

[N/A]

No.

You can't ask him for a hard acceptance prior to the meeting because he might end up being construed as having accepted the offer which would mean that he is contractually bound.

You're just wrong man. Sorry. You're a fan. You don't negotiate fights for a living. You have no way of knowing if what you're saying is true.

Nobody was asking for a hard anything. Finkel just wants to know if the major deal point (money) would be acceptable if the other deal points were satisfactory. This happens in negotiating all the time. When the NBA owners are negotiating with the NBA players, until they agree on a split, they don't move on to the finer points. And just because they agree on a split doesn't mean anything is contractually bound, deals fall apart all the time over the smaller details.