It looks like the possibility of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury fighting fellow Brit and former two-time unified champion Anthony Joshua is growing. And, Joshua’s promoter is going to put the negotiations on the record and even has a tentative date for the proposed fight.
Hearn told IFL TV on Wednesday morning in the UK that Fury’s Queensberry Promotions sent him an initial offer for Fury to make his second title defense this year against Joshua. And, Hearn says they’re working on it with a December 17 date in Cardiff, Wales,
“In essence, we accepted the 60/40 (portfolio split percentage in favor of Fury) offer this morning. Lots of conversations to have. I don’t know if this is a play to let this fall apart and then fight someone ‘well under par’ in November/December and say, ‘I tried to make AJ fight.’ Or, I don’t know if this is to try to get the Usyk fight remembered for a lot more money.” Hearn told the show.
“We are going through all those processes. It’s hard because all the media, the whole world is ‘Are you going to do it?! You’ll make it?! All I can tell you at this point is that we accept 60/40.”
Hearn noted in the lengthy conversation that George Warren, son of Frank Warren of Queensberry, who co-promotes Fury, mentioned Dec. 17 as the date. That’s because Queensberry has booked the 73,000-plus seat multipurpose Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, for that date so that Fury will likely fight someone.
And, importantly, the Principality Stadium, unlike Wembley or others in England, has a fully retractable roof that can be closed to cope with British winter conditions for a boxing match.
As we wrote yesterday, Frank Warren confirmed Monday morning to TalkSport that they were sending Joshua an offer at Fury’s request. However, as Hearn previously theorized, this could all be part of negotiating a couple of different fights for Fury. The biggest and most attractive is fighting undefeated WBA/IBF/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed title.
Usyk just beat Joshua for the second time in less than 12 months and it’s the biggest fight for Fury, though the Joshua fight could be more lucrative. Then again, the appeal of Fury-Joshua is also reduced, because with the two losses to the Ukrainian and his disastrous TKO loss to American Andy Ruiz in June 2019, Joshua has lost three of his last five fights. .
Joshua also behaved strangely after the August fight with Usyk, as he fought back tears, initially walking out of the ring before returning to grab the mic and take the victory away from Usyk by rambling back and forth through the crowd in Saudi Arabia. . So it’s entirely possible that Fury and Warren will see an opportunity to beat a damaged Joshua and get paid big to do it.
Fury, 32-0-1, has just made his second successful title defense in April in front of a UK record over 94,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. That night he dispatched contender Dillian Whyte with a big seventh-round KO.
And, whether he’s going to fight Joshua, get the undisputed fight with Usyk, or fight someone else, it looks like Fury is aiming to get back in the ring against one of them in December.
