Shelly Finkel, the co-manager of WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs), has fired verbal bombs in the direction of IBF, WBO, WBA, IBO world champion Anthony Joshua and his promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom.
Finkel erupted over the way that his fighter is being portrayed by Joshua and his team.
The two sides were in deep negotiations for several months to make a fall fight.
A few weeks ago those discussions crumbled - and it now appears that Joshua will face his WBA mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin on September 22nd at Wembley.
According to Hearn, Finkel and Wilder were dragging their feet to sign the contract.
But Finkel insists that both Hearn and Joshua had no intentions of making a deal to fight Wilder in the fall.
"It was a total scam. They had no intention of fighting Deontay next and that's fine, just say it. "Don't waste everyone's time, don't try and make Deontay look like the guy ducking out of a fight or anything. Just say it I want to Povetkin next and I'm not fighting anyone else next and after that I can fight. He admits it that it was a total scam here. He had a two-fight deal with Wembley," Finkel told Fighthype.com.
Initially, Wilder offered Joshua a guarantee of $50 million to do the fight in the United States.
Joshua refused - and he was willing to make less money if Wilder would would travel over to fight him in the UK.
Wilder agreed to the terms that were offered to face Joshua - but Finkel indicates that there was some funny business with the actual contract.
"They up the offer from $12 million to $15 million. They said it would be the next fight and there would be a rematch clause. So we said we accept, send the contract. Then the contract comes and it has no date for the fight, no arena for the fight, the rematch clause says if he loses we redo the fight, if he wins he doesn't have to fight again.
"So I wrote him and asked him to clarify where and when is the fight. He never answers and then he sends back 'I'll supply you the dates' and I said you'll have to have the contract back by Friday. We wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything else."
The negotiations fell apart - when the World Boxing Association sent a letter which gave Joshua only a 24 hour period to reach an agreement with Povetkin.
Finkel believes the entire scenario was the WBA was orchestrated by Hearn.
After the WBA issued out their letter, Wilder was offered the same deal to fight Joshua on April 13 of next year at Wembley.
"We were never told 'the WBA is pressing me, you've got to give me an answer'. If you want a deal done, you do that. You say, 'hey Shelly I can't wait until Friday, I gotta have this back by Monday late or I'm going to lose the WBA [belt]. So he gets Gilberto Mendoza to send a letter that 'you got to tell us by tomorrow'. Very funny, on Sunday I send him a letter, 12 hours later there is a letter by Mendoza. Coincidence," Finkel said.
"He never said 'hey Shelly I've only got 24 hours, if you really want the fight get it to me. He never said look we can do September 22nd at Wembley, he never said you're right it should be a two-match thing but they would both have to be at Wembley. None of that. He didn't want the fight. Have a little balls and just say we are not ducking Wilder. This is what we feel is in the best interest of Joshua. Here is what we are doing. We will make an offer to fight Wilder April 13th, Wembley stadium, 2019, this is the conditions. We would have said no, here is what we want."
