The prospect of a fight between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder this year is fading with the American heavyweight poised to reject a lucrative offer from streaming service DAZN.
The WBC champion, Deontay Wilder is edging towards turning down the $100million offer from DAZN, which was structured around a bout against his mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale and a unification fights with Anthony Joshua, who holds the WBA, WBO and IBF titles.
DAZN offered Wilder $20m to fight mandatory challenger Breazeale, and $80m for two fights against Anthony Joshua later in the year and at the start of 2020.
Although Wilder was deliberating over the offer, Finkel confirmed to FOX Sports’ Mike Coppinger that the Breazeale fight would not take place on DAZN.
Team Wilder will hold a press conference on Tuesday to officially announce the decision, with the Breazeale fight on May 18 expected to be shown on Showtime pay-per-view instead – who Haymon has a deal with.
It has also been claimed that DAZN proposed another fight in between facing Breazeale and Anthony Joshua against Dillian Whyte in September 2018, but Wilder was not interested. The 33-year-old has not closed the door completely to working with DAZN in the future, but talks will effectively be on hold until after he has faced Breazeale
The news is a huge setback for Anthony Joshua and his camp, with Eddie Hearn having felt that a breakthrough had finally been made towards getting a unification fight set up for November or December this year. Anthony Joshua takes on Jarrell Miller in his US debut at Madison Square Garden in June and had hoped a unification fight against Wilder would follow later in the year.
Anthony Nlebem
