Joshua vs Wilder Will Likely Never Happen
By Ralph Rimpell
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 28 Sep 2024
Last Saturday night, 2-time former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (32-4, 25KOS) was knocked out by 2-time heavyweight champion and current IBF Heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21KOS) in spectacular fashion at a sold out Wembley Stadium in London.
Going into the bout Joshua was clearly the favorite and the more popular fighter even though there was talk that when he sparred against Dubois in the gym years ago, Dubois got the better of Joshua and he could not complete the sparring (rumored TKO).
For championship bouts, traditionally, the champion makes his ring entrance second after the challenger. Dubois, the champion, entered the ring first and Joshua the challenger entered the ring second. In the end it didn’t make a difference who entered the ring first or second because Dubois showed who the real champion was. Dubois knocked down Joshua 4 times before he finally scored a knockout in 5 rounds.
There is some talk of a rematch by Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn, but this Writer believes the outcome would be the same if Dubois and Joshua ever fought again. It would be best for Joshua to return to the gym and try to correct his mistakes and hope to get a win over the top heavyweights such as Tyson Fury, Joseph Parker, Zhillei Zhang, or Martin Bakole.
Prior to Joshua's loss to Dubois, the last time he lost was in a rematch to try and regain his world title from the man who beat him, unified Heavyweight Champion Oleksandr Usyk. The fight that likely will not happen was a fight against former WBC champion Deontay Wilder (43-4-1, 42KOs). Wilder is currently 1-4 in his last 5 fights. In 3 of those fights Wilder suffered knockout losses. The last loss was this past June to heavyweight contender Zhillei Zhang.
There was some talk that Wilder would retire or even fight in a different weight class. While nothing official has been announced, reports are Wilder will continue with his boxing career. Back in 2018 both Joshua and Wilder were both undefeated and there was a $100 million dollars to be divided between the two fighters but for whatever reason both camps could not agree on financials. They both took different paths (fights) that led to multiple losses for both fighters.
In spite of the losses, as recently as 2023 there was still much interest in a Joshua vs Wilder fight that the proposed fight was financially backed by the Saudis and was provisionally signed for 2024. But with both Wilder’s recent losses and Joshua’s loss against Dubois, this fight is not as marketable as it once was and is in effect “dead in the water”, as the expression goes.
This writer has written on this subject before (Joshua vs Anthony) in the past. Fighters have to strike while the proverbial iron is hot (fan interest), as the expression goes. If there is a lot of money to be made, Fighters should sit down and work out a fair deal where both sides can be happy. Examples of that can be seen recently with superfights such as: Crawford vs Spence and Ryan Garcia vs Gervonta “Tank” Davis. There were financial obstacles to overcome but both sides compromised to facilitates the agreement.
Up and coming fighters can learn from both situations of a “Big Fight” getting signed and a “Big Fight” not getting signed as in the case of Joshua vs Wilder. One can’t help but wonder if there is some regret by both Joshua and Wider for not agreeing to the financial terms back in 2018. Now because of their losses to other fighters, Joshua vs Wilder will likely never happen.
Boxing Notes
Nothing Confirmed, but boxing rumors are multidivisional champion and unified Supermiddleweight champion Saul “Canleo” Alvarez seriously is considering defending his titles against fellow multidivisional champion and current WBA jr middleweight champion and P4P #1 Terrance Crawford for his annual Cinco de Mayo fight on May 3, 2025. If rumors are true, this would be a reversal as Canelo has previously said he was not interested in fighting the former lower division champion. Let’s see how this develops in the coming months…Reports are undefeated former WBC Supermiddleweight Champion David Benavidez and Former undefeated WBA (regular) supermiddleweight Champion David Morrel are in serious negations to fight. Both fighters are now fighting at 175lbs after not being able to secure a super fight with unified (WBC, WBO, WBA) super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Should that fight be signed it’s a “Big Fight” that will likely earn each fighter an 8 figure paycheck! The fight will bring in excellent Pay Per View Numbers. The winner will likely go on to make another 8 figure paycheck challenging the winner of Bivol vs Beterbiev for the undisputed light Heavyweight title… The Heavyweight division is now arguably one of the most exciting divisions in boxing if not the most exciting. With the rise of fighters such a IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois, Unified Heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, Joseph Parker, Zhillei Zhang, and Martin Bakole. This writer believes The heavyweights will give exciting fights in 2025.
***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history.
"I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell
Contact Writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.
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