Eddie Hearn says he was genuinely befuddled by Deontay Wilder’s latest comments directed at him.
The British promoter revealed a few weeks ago that he had reached out to Wilder’s longtime handler, Shelly Finkel, about a lucrative fight deal that he had for Wilder to face Anthony Joshua. Hearn, however, said he never heard back from Finkel.
Hearn made his comments before his star charge was set to take on Oleksandr Usyk in a heavyweight unification rematch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In the end, Joshua came up short once again, losing by split decision to the Ukrainian.
After the fight, Wilder took to social media to suggest that Hearn had reached out to him simply for “insurance” purposes. In a follow-up interview with ESNews, Wilder claimed Hearn’s attempt to broker a deal with him before Joshua’s big fight was evidence that he had no confidence in Joshua’s ability to defeat Usyk.
Asked to respond to those claims, Hearn looked bewildered.
“All I said was I reached out to Shelly Finkel and said I’ve got a huge offer for Deontay Wilder, would you like to discuss it,” Hearn said on The DAZN Boxing Show. “And I never heard back.”
Hearn said he does not understand why Wilder would be so incurious as to not query Finkel about what the dollar amount of his offer to him was and suggested, moreover, that some personal animus might be at play. Hearn, of course, has butted heads with Wilder and his team repeatedly over the years, but especially back in 2018 when both sides traded words frequently through the press about a Wilder-Joshua fight. At the time Hearn insisted that Wilder turned down a “$100 million deal” to fight on DAZN, the subscription streaming service that heavily relies on Hearn’s Matchroom for fights.
Wilder is scheduled to return to the ring for the first time since his knockout loss to Tyson Fury last year against Robert Helenius on Oct. 15 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Showtime Pay-Per-View.
“I just don’t get it,” Hearn said. “It may be Deontay Wilder just doesn’t like me and says ‘I don’t care how much money that guy’s got to offer me, I’m not interested.’ But did he even find out about the email (to Finkel)? On what planet would you not even ask what that offer is? You know?
“Listen, he’s got to beat Robert Helenius. That’s a decent fight. That’s not a gimme.”