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Anthony Joshua swerved Deontay Wilder, claims promoter Frank Warren

Boxing

Promoter Frank Warren claims Anthony Joshua and his team swerved a world title unification clash with Deontay Wilder.

Warren is in talks with Wilder's manager, Shelly Finkel, about the WBC world heavyweight champion defending his belt against Joshua's English rival Tyson Fury in Las Vegas on Nov. 10 or 17.

Fury-Wilder has only been made possible after the breakdown in negotiations between WBA/IBF/WBO champion Joshua and Wilder.

Joshua will instead defend his titles against Russian Alexander Povetkin on Sept. 22 after refusing an $80 million offer from Wilder, who then snubbed a $15 million offer from Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn, for a clash at Wembley on April 13.

But Warren said: "The reasons fights don't happen are, one, money, and two, if they don't fancy it.

"If someone guarantees you $80 million, $50 million for the first and $30 million for the second, that tells me you don't fancy a fight.

"Lennox Lewis put it in a nutshell the other day. He made some comments about this, and Lennox has no ax to grind with anybody.

"The only reason this fight is not being made is because either Anthony Joshua, or his management or trainers don't want the fight, otherwise it would be made."

Warren is confident Fury-Wilder will happen, as long as Fury gets past Francesco Pianeta at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Saturday.

It will be the second fight of a comeback for Fury, who outpointed Wladimir Klitschko for the WBA, IBF and WBO world titles in November 2015 but then did not fight again until two months ago due to various problems, including serving a backdated doping ban.

Fury's route back to fighting for world titles has been significantly shortened in recent weeks and Warren says the Manchester-based boxer is on the verge of a shot at Wilder.

"Wilder is very much in the pipeline for later in the year, but first Tyson has his task," Warren said.

"Without telling stories out of school we're very, very close to making Wilder happen. If the worst happened on Saturday I'm sure it would blow everything apart.

"Nearly a year ago we were having a conversation about James DeGale fighting Caleb Truax and coming through to fight Billy Joe Saunders, and we all know what happened there.

"These things happen in boxing, but Tyson is in a good place at the moment and what's important for Tyson is losing more weight and getting into his fight fitness.

"Tyson is happy with the money, Wilder is happy with the money and they want to fight each other."

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