Klitschko: Deontay Wilder would be dangerous fight for Joshua

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid

Wladimir Klitschko says WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) would be a dangerous fight for IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) right now if that fight were to happen. The combination of the 6’7″ Wilder’s speed and power would be potentially devastating to Joshua, who has has been hurt numerous times in fights in the last three years.

Klitschko isn’t saying that Joshua couldn’t beat Wilder. He just thinks it would be a risky fight for AJ due to the power and speed of the KO artist Wilder.

Joshua, 28, has already proven to have a major chin problem, so it could be over for him and his title reign if he faces the powerful Deontay. That could be the reason why Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is being so tight-fisted with his money offer to Wilder.

If Hearn fears that his gravy train fighter could wind up getting knocked cold by Wilder, he could elect to resist making that fight with all his might by offering nothing but flat fee low offers, which amount to only a tiny percentage of the loot the Joshua-Wilder fight will bring in.

”It would be a dangerous fight for Joshua, I’m not saying he wouldn’t win, but Wilder has something. Joshua has all-around more capability, but Wilder is taller and faster,”thetimes.co.uk.

I totally agree with Wladimir. Wilder WOULD be a very dangerous fight for Joshua. It wouldn’t matter if Joshua survived even to the 12th round. If Wilder lands anything clean, Joshua is probably going to take a nice little nap on the canvas. Deontay has too much power and speed for Joshua. As we saw in Wilder’s last fight against Luis Ortiz, he can look bad for nine rounds, and then all of a sudden he can end it with one punch.

It doesn’t look too good that Joshua and Wilder will be sharing anytime soon, as AJ’s promoter Eddie Hearn is only offering The Bronze Bomber a flat fee of $12.5 million for the fight. That offer would equal just 12.5% of a purse split for the Joshua fight if it brings in $100 million like Wilder’s promoters believe it could take in. For that reason, Hearn’s offer isn’t being taken seriously as serious offer of him really wanting to make the fight.

Many boxing fans understand why Hearn is offering Wilder so little for the Joshua fight. With the good money Joshua is raking in for fights against Joseph Parker, Carlos Takam and Wladimir Klitschko, there’s no reason for Hearn to rock the boat and potentially spoil things by matching him against a fighter that could end the party by knocking him out and slowing down the revenue stream.

Wilder has the power to knock Joshua out even with a glancing blow, and you can believe that he’s going to be loading up on every shot he throws if he faces him. Joshua looked hurt by some of the shots that former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-1, 18 KOs) hit him with last month in their fight on March 31, and he’s not seen as a big puncher or even close to having the same kind of power as Deontay.

Who knows how that fight would have turned out if not for the referee that assigned to the fight? He basically kept Parker off Joshua by pulling him away when he was trying to knock him out. With the referee intervening when Parker was fighting Joshua on the inside, it didn’t even look like a real fight. I looked like a sparring session being supervised by Joshua’s trainer instead of a referee. It was such a poorly officiated fight that it was very, very troubling. All you can hope for is that Joshua’s future fights don’t have referees controlling the fight in a comparable manner by preventing inside fighting.

Right now, it looks like Hearn is going to have Joshua exhaust all his available beatable contenders before he turns his sights to making a fight between him and Wilder. I suspect that if Wilder is still looking good and knocking everybody out in sight, Hearn will offer him another low percentage flat fee in the $10-15 million range, and then complain to the media if he chooses not to accept the offer.

It’s likely that by the time the Joshua-Wilder fight does eventually get made one or both will be over-the-hill, and no longer winning like they were previously. The fight will be made, but it won’t bring in the huge cash that it would have if they had made it right now.

Wladimir believes that Joshua has enough talent to beat former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, who is making a comeback on June 9 against a still unnamed opponent at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

“Hands down Joshua. He is getting to be the complete fighter,” Wladimir said in predicting a victory for Joshua over Fury, when/if they ever fight. ”The other guy is like a fart in the wind. It is there, and it is gone. Not disciplined enough to continue to be successful.”

Fury might be able to make a comeback and beat Joshua, but I doubt it. A lot of people think Fury is just making a comeback for one big payday against Joshua, and then he’ll disappear without making an official retirement. Fury was never a good heavyweight when he was still fighting. He put together a handful of wins over weak heavyweights before he beat Wladimir, who chose not to throw punches in the fight.

Wladimir’s loss to Fury seems to bother him a lot more than his knockout defeat to Joshua. It’s obvious why Wladimir would be upset by the Fury fight. He didn’t even try to win by throwing punches. Wladimir looked like he was afraid to throw punches, and whatever chance he had of winning the fight went out the window due to his inactivity.

Wladimir almost beat Joshua last year after coming off a loss to Fury and a 2-year layoff. Additionally, Wladimir was 41-years-old at the time, and way over-the-hill. He would have won if he had tried to finish Joshua off after he knocked the 254 lb. behemoth in the 6th. Wladimir let Joshua survive, and that decision ended up costing him the fight.

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