Eddie Hearn has exclusively told talkSPORT he believes Deontay Wilder is ‘using Anthony Joshua’s name’ amid recent talks of salvaging their fight.
The American came out and declared that, despite announcing his next two fights against Luis Ortiz and then Tyson Fury, he would want the ‘Gypsy King’ to step aside if he was able to face the winner of the Andy Ruiz Jr vs Anthony Joshua rematch.
These comments caused quite a stir as Wilder stated that he doubts Fury actually wants to face him again, though Joshua’s promoter doubts the WBC heavyweight champion is being genuine.
Ahead of the first rematch press conference in Saudi Arabia, Hearn told Jim White on talkSPORT: “What a surprise on the global tour of Joshua vs Ruiz, Deontay Wilder is coming out talking about Anthony Joshua.
“Before the Ruiz fight, at the end of May, Deontay Wilder comes out and says, ‘I’m announcing my next fight, it’s Luis Ortiz.’
“We’re now in September, he still hasn’t announced that date, he still hasn’t announced that venue.
“So this is him, again, just using Joshua’s name.”
Prior to AJ’s June 1 defeat, he was quizzed constantly by media about a potential undisputed fight with Wilder.
It is for this reason that the Brit now no longer wishes to discuss his rival, focussing solely on the man in front of him this time around.
Hearn continued: “We can’t really talk about Wilder at the moment because we’ve got business to take care of.
“I don’t wanna talk about Wilder because all the focus for Joshua for the last two years has been, ‘When’s he fighting Wilder?’
“Going into the Ruiz fight, all the questions were, ‘When are you fighting Deontay Wilder?’
“So, in a way, he overlooked Ruiz because all he was thinking about was the Wilder fight.
“Now, the only fight that matters is the Ruiz rematch. The only fight. Because without the victory, we can’t talk about Deontay Wilder.
“So he now comes back in because he wants the media to all ask questions this week about Deontay Wilder, it’s actually quite clever.
“But AJ’s response will be, ‘For once in my career of the last 18 months, the only thing I’m worried about is getting my belts back and I have to beat Andy Ruiz.’”
