Anthony Joshua is determined to get the Deontay Wilder fight signed.
Wilder has been approached with a flat fee offer of £8.8 million to agree to the unification contest which would decide the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis.
When speaking to JOE earlier this week, ‘AJ’ insisted that he was only looking at Wilder for his next bout, revealing that a mandatory defence against Alexander Povetkin was not exactly appealing to him right now.
Wilder earned a reported £1.5 million for the most recent defence of his WBC heavyweight title against Luis Ortiz but he may well hold out for more money for the Joshua fight considering that it would be one of the most intriguing fights the division has produced this century.
Joshua has insisted that his camp has approached Wilder on three occasions in an attempt to get the fight done but, according to The Telegraph, Wilder’s manager Shelly Finkel claimed that the £8.8 million approach was the first and that it included no information in relation to the “place, date or venue, nor even whether it was the next fight.”
It’s understood that a rematch clause will be included in the contract which would entitle ‘The Bronze Bomber’ to a 50-50 split of the purse for the second fight, regardless of the outcome of the first.
Joshua is going to push for the first bout to take place on UK soil, with London preferred to Cardiff, although Wilder would be entitled to decide the location of the rematch.
For his victory over Joseph Parker two weeks ago, Joshua is said to have taken home close to £20 million after agreeing to a 67-33 split with the previously undefeated Kiwi.
The Telegraph reports that although the flat fee offer was of the take-it-or-leave-it variety, Wilder’s team is going to push for a 60-40 split in Joshua’s favour and will respond before the week is out.
