Anthony Joshua tells Deontay Wilder to get realistic or get frozen out

Heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua wants fellow titleholder Deontay Wilder to do less brash talking in the media and more thoughtful consideration if the two are ever going to meet inside the ring.

Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn have made it clear for some time now that Wilder is not going to get a 50-50 split in any potential unification fight as he’s by far the bigger draw.

“If he was serious about the fight, we’d do serious negotiation. If not, stop hooting and hollering because we’ll just freeze him out,” Joshua told the gathered media at his workout in Sheffield.

Joshua goes on to say that he has a number of good top-10 challengers he could take on in future fights, and that Wilder needs him more as fans and broadcasters have generally gotten tired of watching him take on less-than-inspiring competition.

Joshua then urges Wilder to be realistic again, saying that he needs to consider the financial landscape of their fight and understand that they have much more money to offer by making that fight in the U.K. rather than the U.S.

“If he offered me 10 times more money to fight than what I am looking at in the UK, I would go there to fight him.

”But he is coming here. We are doing the offering, he hasn’t offered us. Take it or leave it,” he added.

If a Joshua-Wilder fight doesn’t come through for the immediate future, and he beats Joseph Parker next weekend, it’s expected that Joshua will soon be handling some mandatory title defenses.