By Marcus Richardson: Tyson Fury will lose his Ring Magazine heavyweight title if he doesn’t schedule a fight by today, according to the latest boxing news. The Ring title is arguably the last bargaining chip Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) has going for him to get a better purse split for a fight against IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in the future.
For Fury to keep his Ring heavyweight title, he’ll need to schedule a top heavyweight near the top 5 of the division in the Ring ratings, according to TalkSport. Just how close is anyone’s guess. We’re probably talking at least top 10. That would mean Fury will need to schedule against one of these fighter for his April comeback:
– Dominic Breazeale
– Kubrat Pulev
– Jarrell Miller
– Adam Kownacki
The other top 10 fighters – Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte, Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker, Luis Ortiz, and Alexander Povetkin – are busy with fights. Miller is expected to be fighting soon, so he may be off the list as well.
Given the limited choices for the 29-year-old Fury to fight in April, he’s probably not going to keep his Ring heavyweight title. The good news is Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says it doesn’t matter if Fury loses his Ring belt. It won’t impact the negotiations for a fight with AJ.
”I think what you’ll see is Tyson Fury announce a date in the next 24 hours, because he has to or he’ll be stripped of the Ring Magazine title,” Hearn said to Fighthype. ”But also, I think he has to fight someone in the Top 5, the Ring Magazine, which obviously isn’t going to happen. So I expect him to lose that Ring Magazine title, which I don’t think really effects the Joshua fight at all. But I think they’ll just give a date rather than actually know that he’s fighting on that date. We want him back. He’s not a priority of ours, because we want to win the belts, but we also understand that it’s a big, big fight,” Hearn said.
It looks like Fury is going to lose his Ring Magazine heavyweight. At least Hearn is saying it won’t change the negotiations for the fight with Joshua. It sounds like Hearn wasn’t going to give much weight to Fury’s Ring title when it comes to splitting up the revenue for the fight. Hearn says Joshua will have at least 3 of the heavyweight titles by the time he faces Fury, who will be a voluntary challenger. With Joshua holding 3 heavyweight titles, it’s going to be difficult for Fury to argue that he deserves a 50-50 split of the revenue. Asking 60 percent is totally out of the question for Fury. Having 3 heavyweight titles may not be a reason enough for Joshua to get the bigger split of the purse. Look at IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin. He had to agree to the smaller purse split for his recent title defense against Saul Canelo Alvarez last September. Golovkin took second billing in that fight despite being a 3-belt world champion and Canelo being just the contender.