Eddie Hearn, promoter for former two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, feels good about the possibility of a showdown getting finalized with former WBC beltholder Deontay Wilder.
Investors in the Middle East are ready to pay a large number to secure a heavyweight collision between Joshua and Wilder, for an event in December.
Two of Joshua’s biggest fights – rematch bouts with Andy Ruiz and Oleksandr Usyk – were staged in the Middle East.
Last month, Hearn flew out to Riyadh to hold business meetings regarding the idea of staging Joshua vs. Wilder.
“We were just talking,” Hearn said to Mirror Fighting about his Riyadh trip. “Obviously they want to make AJ against Wilder and so do we, we’ll have to see what happens, no official offer yet but hopefully it comes this week.
“We haven’t talked numbers, but they know what we made to fight Ruiz and they know what we made to fight Usyk. This is a much bigger fight. I think it’s bigger than Fury-Usyk, people will have a go at me for saying that but I think so. They’ve got the means to do it, they’re great to work with, we’ve done stuff with them before and if they want it, it can happen.”
Joshua saw action last month in London, when he picked up a twelve round unanimous decision over Jermaine Franklin. There is talk of Joshua coming back in the summer, possibly in a rematch with Dillian Whyte. If a deal with Wilder gets done, the British star will likely stay on the sidelines until December.
Wilder has been away from the ring since October of 2022, when he blasted out Robert Helenius in one round at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.