Ricky Hatton has had his say on the Anthony Joshua vs Dillian Whyte negotiations and reckons the whole thing is a ‘circus’.
Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn had initially wanted to make a fight with Whyte on August 12 in a rematch, with the pair having clashed previously in 2015 when AJ emerged victorious by KO.
1
Whyte was not satisfied with the money being offered and Hearn subsequently revealed the fight was unlikely to get made and that Joshua would be considering other opponents.
At this point, Whyte told talkSPORT he was now willing to accept the offer and so Hearn sent over a contract.
But they hit another stumbling block as the contract included a rematch clause, as is common when Anthony Joshua fights.
‘The Bodysnatcher’, however, does not want to fight Joshua twice if he wins, instead preferring to move on to a huge clash with Deontay Wilder at the end of the year and so once again negotiations have stalled.
“The heavyweight scene is a little bit upsetting, isn’t it?” Hatton told talkSPORT.
“I’m not pointing any fingers at promoters or TV or even fighters, but it’s a little bit like a circus at the minute, you don’t know who to believe or what to believe.
“I originally saw that Dillian Whyte vs Anthony Joshua was going to be made in August and then Dillian Whyte said he hasn’t even had an offer and then Eddie Hearn said he had made an offer and then they were arguing over how much the offer was and I was thinking to myself ‘what do you believe?’.”
Hatton then also touched on Tyson Fury’s current situation where he is also without an opponent, despite having not fought since December last year, and yet the WBC recently revealed they will not be ordering a mandatory defence of his world title.
“AJ and Tyson [Fury] haven’t fought since nearly Christmas and I remember back in the day when you won the title you had a certain number of days to defend it otherwise you got stripped.
“I don’t know what’s happening these days but it’s like the governing bodies are making up their own rules for their financial benefit and it’s hurting our sport.
“Negotiating is part of the business. I’ve been there and you want the best deal, but sometimes they’re going to cut the nose off to spite the face.
“You see YouTubers, rappers and Mixed Martial Artists fighting each other and they’re the ones pulling in the crowds while our sport is suffering and it’s because big fights aren’t being made.”
