By Tim Parsons-
Three belt world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has insisted on facing Deontey Wilder in the UK, to avoid referee and judging stating that he owes it to the fans to stage the fight in the UK.
He told Lyons Den UK: “With this Las Vegas talk, I owe it to everyone in Great Britain that have been supporting me to do my best to get this fight in the UK, in my opinion, that’s number one.”
“He’s kind of said ‘alright cool, come on fight me in America,’
“But the thing is with that, number one as I’ve said, I owe it to the fans and everyone that’s been supporting me to do it here [Britain].
“And number two, if I go there, there’s a lot of like tricks that they play in terms of like referees and judges and that’s why I want to be at home where I’m secure.”
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Talks between Joshua and Wilder’s team to stage this fight has been ongoing for a while now. Hearns initially offered Wilder’s team to fight Joshua, but the American’s team came back with four times that offer, insisting the fight happens in the U.S. Most of boxing’s greatest fights have taken place in the U.S, but with Anthony Joshua being the leading heavyweight in the world, he is keen on securing home advantage in this big unification fight. The Londoner says he is even willing to take a pay cut of over £7m to stage the fight in the UK.
Hearn revealed Joshua now has just two possible opponents for his next fight – Wilder or Russia’s former WBA champ Alexandra Povetkin.
He said: “There have been talks ongoing with Alexander Povetkin’s team because he’s our mandatory opponent (for the WBA title).
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“If it’s not Wilder it will almost certainly be Povetkin, which is also a tough fight.
“We’ll see how the conversations go, but I’d say we’ve got another three weeks to go. lot of it depends on Wilder’s attitude towards it all.
“Certainly we don’t have a problem if Wilder was to win the fight, doing a second one in America. He would have earned that right.
“Yes, [fighting in the UK] is an advantage. But AJ genuinely is thinking more of the fans in his decision.
“How many would we be able to get in America? Maybe 6,000 to 10,000 fans. AJ said: ‘Is that it?’
“When you’re dealing with 90,000 and he could bring an undisputed championship fight to Britain, AJ is genuinely interested in that stuff.
“Rob [McCracken] who is trainer, manager and an ex-fighter, knows the advantage of being at home.
AJ genuinely loves fighting in the UK. He knows there has never been an undisputed fight before, he wants the first unification fight in Britain in the heavyweight division.
“So to do an undisputed heavyweight unification fight in the UK, would be historic.
“But whether Wilder’s team feel the same, like I said, those talks are ongoing. But that’s the general feeling from AJ and Rob.”he old saying about how you have to go to America to make it big, I don’t see that anymore. That’s not in AJ’s mind.
“AJ will have to take a pay cut to fight in the UK and I don’t think he’s that bothered.
“The offer that they made, if that was open to a UK fight, we would have signed immediately. But obviously, they want to pay the money to get AJ to Wilder’s backyard.”
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