Deontay Wilder: We were skeptical about Joshua, you can’t trust Hearn

Deontay Wilder says he was always skeptical about a fall fight deal with Anthony Joshua going through, and says he would have done things differently if he were in Joshua’s position.

From The Boxing Beat with Dan Rafael at ESPN:

“We were always skeptical about it, because you can’t trust Eddie Hearn. Eddie Hearn is not a guy that you wanna trust. That’s just point, blank, and period right there. We knew that every time we did something, they wanted to come back and serve the ball like we were playing tennis or something. We were trying to get the deal done, as you can see. We did everything! We did everything.”

“... I would respect him as a champion and as a person, like, ‘Look, we are not interested right now. No, we don’t want to fight.’ That’s all we were looking for. We wouldn’t have done the things we were doing, we were serious about the fight the whole way through. That’s the most frustrating thing about it, when you know you’ve done everything to try to make this fight happen for the fans. When people just play around with you — I tell them that boxing is an emotional sport. People get involved with their feelings with this sport. When you do stuff like this, and the outcome comes, the biggest fight in boxing can’t be made, people get mad. Especially when they see the side that’s trying to do everything. We don’t have to lie about nothin’! What do we got to lie about?”

Wilder (40-0, 39 KO) will surely defend his WBC heavyweight title by the end of 2018, coming off of a chaotic and exciting win over Luis Ortiz in March, while Joshua (21-0, 20 KO) is set to defend on September 22 against WBA mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin (34-1, 24 KO).

If all goes well for both champions, there is hope that Joshua and Wilder will meet next April at Wembley Stadium.