Deontay Wilder willing to travel to the UK for a BIG fight

By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn, the promoter for IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte, is interested in having unbeaten WBC champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder travel over to the UK to fight his two heavyweights, starting with Whyte. As of now, the cash isn’t there from Hearn’s side to get Deontay to fight the once beaten Whyte in the UK.

In an ideal world, Wilder will fight in the UK against one of their heavyweights before he faces Joshua next year. That would help build the Joshua-Wilder fight to make it into a much bigger fight. The problem is if you’re asking a talented heavyweight champion to give up home advantage by fighting in the UK, then it’s going to take good money for Wilder to do that.

I mean, if Wilder’s promoter offered Joshua $3 million to come to the U.S in order to fight Luis Ortiz, I’m guessing the answer would be a flat out ‘NO’ right away. I don’t think for a second that Joshua and Hearn would even consider a $3 million offer to travel to the U.S to fight Ortiz. They would likely laugh Wilder’s promoter out of the room with a $3 million offer for a fight against Ortiz.

Wilder’s promoter doesn’t promote Ortiz, but if he did, I don’t think an offer of that amount would budge Joshua and Hearn to come to the States for such a fight. You can understand where Wilder is coming from in not wanting to take $3 million to fight Dillian Whyte in the UK. It’s not that Wilder is resistant to a fight against Whyte. It’s the principal of the thing.

Hearn is asking arguably the most talented and dangerous heavyweights in the division to come over to the UK o fight for just $3 million against Wilder. Besides the money aspect, it would put Wilder potentially in a situation where he needs a knockout in order to get the victory.

I’d like to think the judging would be top rate for the fight, but you never know. In many cases, the visiting fighters historically find themselves on the receiving end of controversial decisions when they visit foreign countries. It wouldn’t be quite a big deal if Wilder wasn’t a world champion, but he is a world champion. If he loses his title, he would be in a bad spot.

Former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew has been yakking to the boxing public about wanting to potentially fight Deontay. Bellew is promoted by Hearn as well. A fight between Bellew and Wilder will likely require a big offer from Hearn to make it a realistic fight for Deontay to be made. Wilder isn’t going to fight Bellew for chump change. That fight would likely bring in BIG numbers on Sky Box Office pay-per-view in the UK.

If Deontay could whet his beak on some of the cash from the British PPV revenue, it’s possible that a fight between him and a non-heavyweight like Bellew could be possible. What is a fair deal for a Wilder-Bellew fight? 70-30 in Wilder’s favor or something to that effect would seem reasonable to me. The big question is would Bellew be willing to take the small money for a fight against Deontay? I don’t know how Bellew could ask for an even split of the cash when he would be just another challenger and not a champion fighting Deontay on even terms.

Wilder’s promoter Lou Dibella wants the boxing world to know that his fighter is willing to travel out of the States for the right fight. We’re talking about a big fight for a fight that brings in huge money. Dillian Whyte, ranked #5 by the World Boxing Council in their heavyweight rankings, isn’t exactly a big fight.

Whyte was beaten by Joshua already by a 7th round knockout in 2015, and he just finished dodging a bullet in his fight with Dereck Chisora. That performance by Whyte was a terrible one. I don’t know how Hearn could have Whyte walk away from the Chisora fight without giving the man a rematch. It doesn’t look good for Wilder to be throwing a bone to a fighter that was arguably given a gift decision over Chisora.

“For a major fight or the right opportunity, Deontay has no hesitation to travel as he proved when he was on his way to Russia,” said DiBella to skysports.com.

There are only 3 interesting fights out there for Wilder in the heavyweight division and they are as follow:

– Anthony Joshua

– Joseph Parker

– Tyson Fury

Those are great fights for Deontay. Dillian Whyte is not an interesting fight. It might help Hearn’s bottom line for him to match Whyte against Deontay, because if he gets lucky and beats the “Bronze Bomber,” it would set up an in house unification fight between Whyte and Joshua in the UK. Joshua-Whyte brought in a lot of PPV buys in their previous fight in 2015.

Hearn is likely licking his chops at the thought of a unification match between Whyte and Joshua if Whyte can get his hands on the WBC title by snatching it off of Deontay. There is a couple of problems that prevents Whyte from getting his hands on the WBC belt.

First off, Hearn is only offering $3 million to Deontay for a fight with Whyte. Deontay wants no less than $7 million. As such, Hearn will either need to dig deep in his piggy bank to fight the additional $7 million or he’ll need to walk away and give up on the idea of setting up a fight between Whyte and Wilder.

I’m afraid it won’t work for Hearn to dangle a fight against Joshua for Deontay in order to get him to fight Whyte. Deontay obviously knows that he can get the fight against Joshua anyway if he waits long enough for him to get done with his commitments to Wladimir Klitschko and Kubrat Pulev.

Once those fights are out of the way, Deontay will get his fight against Joshua unless he gets beaten by Wladimir or Pulev first. If that happens, then it’s going to take some rebuilding for Joshua before he can get a fight against the 6’7” Wilder. Fights like Joshua-Wilder need time to marinate, and it would be a risky for them to fight each other if Joshua loses one of his next 2 fights.

Deontay has a mandatory defense that he absolutely needs to get out of the way against Bermane Stiverne before he can fight Joshua or some other big name like Parker or Tyson Fury.

Here are some 2nd tier options for paydays for Wilder:

– Hughie Fury

– Dillian Whyte

– Luis “King Kong” Ortiz

– Dereck Chisora

– Kubrat Pulev

– Dominic Breazeale

– Jarrell Miller

– Alexander Ustinov

– Bermane Stiverne

– Tony Bellew

It’s a real positive that Wilder is willing to travel to make big fights happen. The last time I checked, Joshua has only been fighting in the UK. What does that tell you? Is Joshua resistant to traveling or is this something that is being done by his promoter Eddie Hearn.

“We are willing to travel for a big enough event. We would come over if the economic situation and the deal made sense,” said Dibella.

Right now, I’d say the only fights worth it for Wilder to travel out of the U.S would be for him to fight Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Bellew would likely be a possibility for Deontay under the right circumstances with Deontay getting the lion’s share of the loot for the fight. I just don’t think Bellew would agree to letting Deontay hog the cash for that fight due to Bellew having a money rematch with David Haye right around the corner. Bellew will likely be getting the bigger cut of the pie in the Haye rematch. I don’t see Bellew agreeing to a 70-30 or 80-20 split for a fight against Deontay.