WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) states that Anthony Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) is completely to blame for their negotiations falling apart.
Wilder and Joshua were in talks for a fall unification, but they were unable to agree on the terms.
Wilder and his handlers presented a guarantee of $50 million for Joshua to travel to the United States for the fight, but Joshua and his handlers rejected the proposal – and countered with a flat-fee of $15 million to stage the bout in a UK stadium.
Instead, Joshua made a mandatory defense, and retained his WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO titles last month with a seventh round knockout of Alexander Povetkin.
Joshua is set to fight again on April 13th, at Wembley Stadium in London.
Wilder on the other hand is going to headline a Showtime Pay-Per-View card on December 1, when he faces lineal champion Tyson Fury at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
“He was just a coward, straight out. He was just a coward. He didn’t want to fight. When a guy allows his people to not accept $50 million dollars, that’s a guarantee, you don’t want to fight,” Wilder told The Fair Game.
“When a guy offers me a $15 million flat fee, which is the worst offer in boxing history for a fight of this magnitude, they still didn’t want it. With that being said, they don’t want to fight – they just want to trick people, manipulate them, contradict and just be compulsive. We’ve moved on and now I’m in the biggest fight in the world, with Tyson Fury.
“[Joshua] needs someone to narrate the conversation, a middleman. I’m a grown man, I don’t deal with boys. I don’t need another man to reply to someone else, when we are right here face-timing each other. I think he’s a little fearful of me, so we’re gonna let him be.”
