By Miguel Rivera
World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman is not expecting the heavyweight unification between Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua to get done anytime soon.
The two sides have been trying to reach an agreement for several weeks and time is now running out.
Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, is giving Wilder two weeks to agree to a deal - or they are moving forward, likely to WBA mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin.
Wilder's handlers have presented a guaranteed offer of $50 million to get Joshua to the United States.
In a prior interview, Joshua said he would take the fight - if $50 million was offered to him.
But, after thinking it over, Joshua said he was comfortable with taking a pay cut in order to do the fight in the UK - and he's pretty firm on having the fight in the UK.
Wilder is not very keen on traveling over - after he offered Joshua his requested amount to fight on American soil.
Sulaiman has his doubts that a deal will be struck in the required time frame.
"Wilder is desperate to have that fight. They told him that if he wanted to, that he had to go to England and he said yes, and then they offered Joshua $50 million to come to the United States and everything has gotten complicated. Right now it seems that everything is stagnant. Those negotiations will be difficult," Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes.
Wilder retained his WBC heavyweight title back in March, with a ten round stoppage of undefeated Luis Ortiz at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
And Joshua also fought in March, when he unified the WBO, WBA, IBO, IBF heavyweight titles with a twelve round unanimous decision victory over Joseph Parker at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
2023-10-23 09:59:16
