I turned down £40m fight with Wilder – AJ

Anthony Joshua has revealed he turned down a £40m fight with Deontay Wilder in the summer due to a contract dispute,National Daily learnt.

There were talks of a bout between the two heavyweights on the date of the Povetkin fight at Wembley in September .

Joshua would have had the chance to become the undisputed heavyweight champion for the first time since Lennox Lewis in 1990.

However , complications in negotiations between the parties meant the fight was never as simple as it appeared.

National Daily gathered from  iFL TV, Joshua said , “ It ’ s the first time I ’ ve ever really had issues on the financial side with a fighter .

“ So , let ’ s say that 50 million we talked about . Listen , it’ s a hell of a lot of money and it was an honour to even have that number thrown at me .

“ But then when you dissected it and what it actually it was , it was kind of like a rights fee – ‘ We own you for this amount of money’ .

“ The issue I had was that I ’ ve got long – standing contracts in place with certain partnerships. So you may put that money forward and think that you own me 100 per cent but you may only own 50 per cent so that makes their 50 per cent worth 25 per cent .

“ So when you start getting into the intricacies of a contract and what the real value is, that’ s when that starts taking place .

“ So the $50m ( £40m ) was unbelievable, it’ s a great number, but there are things in place that don’ t make that $50m worth it to the person paying it. ”

It now looks as though AJ is seemingly headed for a mouthwatering fight with the Bronze Bomber next year .