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Eddie Hearn says he was encouraged by recent interaction he had with the manager of Deontay Wilder.
Hearn, the promoter of former unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, has been publicly calling for a bout between his charge and Wilder. But communication seems to have been mainly one-sided—until, recently, that is.
Talk of pairing Alabama’s Wilder and London’s Joshua goes back to 2018, but it has gained renewed interest recently after Hearn informed reporters earlier this summer that he had reached out to Wilder’s manager Shelly Finkel once again about making the fight.
Hearn said he was initially met with radio silence, while Finkel told outlets that it was a moot point to even discuss the fight since Wilder, at that point, had a scheduled fight with Robert Helenius. Wilder would go on to short circuit Helenius in one round last month at the Barclays Center to establish a successful return to the ring after a one-year layoff.
Now, it appears, according to Hearn, that there is some growing, if still relatively minor, dialogue with Wilder’s team.
“I emailed him (Finkel) in August to talk about an offer,” Hearn told iD Boxing during fight week festivities for the light heavyweight match between Dmitry Bivol and Gilberto Ramirez in Abu Dhabi. “He came back today; it took a long while, but at least he replied.”
Hearn said he envisions a fight between Wilder and Joshua to take place in the Middle East, where Joshua has fought a couple of times and where site fees can fetch gargantuan sums.
“That offer that we had for him (Wilder) was for this year, obviously, with our relationship out here, we’d like to continue that offer [for the Middle East],” Hearn said. “I actually invited Deontay and Shelly out here this week. They can’t come but we’ll be working with them and try and come up with some ideas.”
Hearn made it clear, however, that they are nowhere near serious negotiations yet. Wilder is advised by Al Haymon of Premier Boxing Champions, with whom Hearn has a frosty, adversarial relationship.
“Literally it was a one line email,” Hearn said of Finkel’s response to him. “But it was positive. I think Deontay is going to want the biggest fights out there and he knows that’s AJ. AJ has always wanted the Deontay Wilder fight. Hopefully we’ll see that in 2023.”
“Again, it all depends on AJ if he waits to go into a fight like that or if he has a fight earlier in the year. But I see AJ against Deontay Wilder as a must make fight,” Hearn added. “I really do. I think it’s one of the biggest in the sport.”
Hearn also floated the possibility of Wilder facing one of Hearn’s other charges, longtime British contender Dillian Whyte, also in the Middle East.
“They just want to know,” Hearn said of his brief email exchange with Finkel. “They want to know the numbers. Of course, they should do as well because there is a lot of money in play in the shows that we are doing. I feel that we can hopefully have some discussion and see if AJ against Wilder or Whyte against Wilder or whatever it is could be an option, particularly out here in the Middle East.”