With the “talks” regarding an Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder fight getting nowhere (or failing to even start, Hearn telling Sky Sports that Shelly Finkel would not agree to sit down with him – “deals are made in a boardroom, not on Instagram,” Hearn said yesterday) – Joshua is in need of a new next foe. Jarrell Miller, who went 12-rounds for the first time in decisioning a game Johann Duhaupas on Saturday, wants it to be him.
Calling out “English Muffin” Joshua, Miller, unbeaten at 21-0-1(18) vowed to “toast” AJ should Hearn let him near his star heavyweight. Unless anything big, and shocking, happens with regards to those “talks” on a Wilder-Joshua fight, and soon, it seems both heavyweight champions will be moving on – for now at least. Hearn did tell iFLTV yesterday how he has spoken with Showtime regarding the massive unification showdown, and how they “like the fight in November.”
So it doesn’t look like it will be Wilder-Joshua next (Hearn is convinced Wilder will face Dominic Breazeale next, in August). Miller makes sense for AJ’s US debut, Hearn said. Big Baby is a great talker, a huge man (if not a huge puncher) and he has fast hands. Hearn says he was impressed by Miller’s boxing in the Duhaupas fight, but, like many of us, he wonders whether “Big Baby” has a great chin. If not, Hearn said, he will have real trouble getting through the early rounds of a fight with AJ.
But Miller, a most attractive commodity, says he has a plan-B if he doesn’t get the shot at Joshua. “If not, we have Manuel Charr in Germany and we could probably make that happen,” Miller said shortly after his win over Duhaupas. “So that’s my next option if Eddie doesn’t put his money where his mouth is and make it [the AJ fight] happen.”
No disrespect to the gutsy and admirable Charr, but Miller would likely enter that fight as a big favourite. Again, Miller might not be the massive puncher some of us felt he might be a while back, but that aside Miller would be expected to have too much youth, speed and size for the holder of a secondary WBA belt. And if Miller did take that fight with “Diamond Boy” and get the win, he would have a bargaining chip of sorts, in which to put on the table in talks for a bigger fight.
“I’m the only top guy in the world without a belt,” Miller said after Saturday’s win, and he could put that right by taking that Charr fight. Time will tell, but if it’s not Wilder or Alexander Povetkin next for Joshua, then it could/maybe should be Miller. If not, look for Miller to pack his bags and head to Germany.
