Tyson Fury tells Hearn to stop using his name to build Joshua-Parker fight

By Boxing News - 01/25/2018 - Comments

Image: Tyson Fury tells Hearn to stop using his name to build Joshua-Parker fight

By Scott Gilfoid: Tyson Fury let IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn know that he wants him to stop using his name on a daily basis to help drive interest in AJ’s unification fight against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) on March 31.

Ever since the news of the Joshua-Parker fight was first announced, Hearn has opened his yap to let the UK boxing fans know that a fight between Joshua and Fury is just over the horizon in the summer.

”Eddie Hearn, please stop using my name on a daily basis to build AJ vs. Parker,” Fury said on his social media. ”You have had your chance to make me vs. AJ and declined many times! I’ve already told you it will be on my terms and the split will be 60/40 my end. See you summer/autumn 2019.” Fury said.

So there it is. Fury scolding Hearn for using his name to help sell the Joshua vs. Parker fight. It’s too bad Hearn doesn’t just talk about the Joshua-Parker fight and sell it on the merits of it being a good fight instead of him having to use poor Fury as a prop when he’s being interviewed.

As far as Fury wanting a 60-40 purse percentage for the Joshua fight, I think he’s dead serious about that. I don’t read Fury as joking around with that request. Hearn might need to give in to Fury’s demands if he wants to make the Joshua-Fury fight in 2018 or whenever, because it doesn’t look like he’s going to accept less than 60 percent of the loot. The part where Fury talks about “see you in summer/autumn 2019,” that’s him letting Hearn and the boxing public know that he’s not going to fight Joshua in 2018. In other words, Fury is being smart about his comeback by taking things slowly by getting in shape and fighting a bunch of tune-up fights before he looks to face Joshua next year. I’m betting that didn’t make Hearn too happy, because he seems to be in a real rush to make the Joshua-Fury fight for some reason. I get the impression that Hearn wants Joshua to fight Fury while he’s rusty, fat and not fully ready for the fight. That would give Joshua a better chance to win. Once Fury is beaten, there’s nothing he could do about it, because the boxing public won’t listen to his excuses about how he wasn’t 100 percent. The wily Hearn will have out-foxed Fury.

Initially, Hearn said that Joshua and Fury would be facing each other in late 2018, but he’s moved that date up to this summer. By Hearn constantly blabbering about the Joshua-Fury potentially happening in the summer, it’s gotten a lot of boxing fans excited about it. You can only imagine how many of those same fans are now going to be purchasing the Joshua vs. Parker fight on Sky Box Office due to them wanting to see AJ fight because the Fury fight is supposedly coming next.

Hearn name dropping Fury’s name on a daily basis is arguably the same trick that was used by Manny Pacquiao’s management to get boxing fans excited about his fights in the years before he faced Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2015. Pacquiao’s people were constantly mentioning a fight with Mayweather for years, and that created a lot of interest in the Filipino star’s fights. Hearn seems to be doing the same thing by name dropping Fury’s name to get fans interest in Joshua’s fight with Parker. Whether it’s intentional or not on Hearn’s part doesn’t matter. He’s still talking about Fury seemingly as much as if not more than he is Parker, who Joshua is fighting next.

Boxing news from this week suggests that the Joshua vs. Parker fight will bring in big numbers. 70,000 tickets have already been sold for the venue for the fight at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. The stadium seats 78,000, so it’s obviously going to sellout. How many of the tickets were sold because of the boxing fans assuming Joshua will soon be fighting Fury after the Parker fight is unknown. Hearn should try and focus on selling the Joshua-Parker fight on its own merits. I noticed a long time ago that Hearn is doing way too much talking about Fury and not nearly enough about Joshua’s opponent Parker.

If you’re going to sell a fight as the promoter, you’ve got to put in the effort to hype the fight that your fighter is involved in next rather than getting lost in reverie thinking about a fight that could happen in the distant future. It’s too bad that Hearn is taking that approach to trying to build interest in the Joshua vs. Parker fight rather than talking about the positives of this match-up. Hearn needs someone to work with him as the guy that talks about Joshua’s next fight. That way Hearn can talk about dream fights involving Joshua to the media while the other promoter sticks to the present-day reality of Joshua’s career.