By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Frank Warren has confirmed with Gareth A Davies that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn did in fact send an offer last weekend directly to Tyson Fury for a fight against Anthony Joshua, but the offer was what he calls a “derisory” offer, and it wasn’t the 50-50 split that they want. Warren didn’t say what percentage split was offered to Fury by Hearn. It’s unclear why Hearn didn’t send the offer directly to Warren rather than Fury. That’s a bad look.
While some boxing fans might think that Fury asking for 50% of the revenue for a fight against Joshua is an overreach on his part, you have to realize that he brings a lot to the table in this fight. If Joshua were to fight Fury, there would be a massive amount of pay-per-view buys and ticket sales generated for that fight. Fury asking for a 50-50 deal is just him wanting to share in the money that he brings in.
“We’ve never had this offer,” Tyson Fury’s promoter Frank Warren said to Gareth A Davies, when asked if the rumor that Fury had been given a 60-40 offer from Joshua’s promoter was true. “Nothing has been sent to me. [Eddie] Hearn sent an offer to Tyson over the weekend, but it certainly was not 60-40, and it was quite a derisory offer. That’s it. We’ve had nothing else. We haven’t responded to it. It was so derisory. 50-50; it’s as simple as that,” Warren said when asked what purse split Fury wants for him to agree to a fight with Joshua.
If Hearn didn’t even make a 60-40 offer to Fury, then it makes you how much of a lowball offer did he make? Surely, Hearn must realize that he’ll never get Fury to agree to a paltry offer for a fight against Joshua. Why bother even making the offer if it’s not a 50-50 split? Fury has already made it crystal clear that he wants a 50-50 deal. Did Hearn think he was just kidding when Fury said he wants nothing less than a 50-50 deal? Joshua vs. Fury will easily sell out the 100,000 seat Wembley Stadium in London, UK on April 13. The pay-per-view numbers on Sky Box Office and possibly SHOWTIME would be through the roof. It would bring in massive amounts of money. If Joshua beats Fury, then his popularity at home in the UK, as well as abroad would be increased. Wilder didn’t KO Fury, so if Joshua can be the first to knock him out, he would receive tons of credit from boxing fans. Of course, you can argue that Wilder DID knockout Fury, but the referee Jack Reiss didn’t stop the fight when he was on his back in the 12th round in their fight on December 1.
Hearn obviously feels that Joshua deserves most of the loot in a fight against Wilder or Fury because he holds three world titles at heavyweight. That doesn’t matter though to the casual boxing fans. They care if Joshua holds any belts. They see Fury as an uncrowned champion, since he never lost his titles inside the ring from the belts he won back in 2015. It doesn’t matter that Fury doesn’t have as many world titles as Joshua. This fight is more about ability, and popularity. When you start talking about who has more world titles, you’re getting into the nerd stuff, the stuff that the ultra-hardcore boxing fans focus on. That’s not the way the casual fans see it. They just look at the heavyweights, and they consider the best fighters the guys that look great. The belts are nothing trinkets worn for adornment in the eyes of a lot of fans. They stopped caring about titles a long time ago due to the many sanctioning bodies watering down each of the division with their many world titles.
Joshua, 29, isn’t going to get a fight against Fury or Deontay Wilder unless he gives both of them the 50-50 deal that they’re asking for in order to fight him. Joshua will end up having to fight all of Hearn’s Matchroom stable fighters like Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller, Dillian Whyte and Dave Allen over and over again. You can argue that Joshua would be far better off giving Wilder and Fury the 50-50 deal they’re asking for rather than getting stuck fighting Hearn’s Matchroom fighters repeatedly in front of increasingly smaller crowds. The boxing public isn’t going to want to continue to see Joshua fight lesser guys, as they’re going to see it as a case of Hearn guarding his golden goose to keep him from getting beaten by the better heavyweights in the division.
Heres what @frankwarren_tv just told me pic.twitter.com/3Z0bOgN5kC
— Gareth A Davies (@GarethADaviesDT) January 15, 2019
Wladimir Klitschko received a reported 50-50 deal for a fight against Anthony Joshua in 2017. Fury and Wilder are in the same league as Wladimir in terms of bringing in boxing fans for a fight against Joshua. Hearn might as well give those guys the percentage split that they want so that the fight gets made before one of those three starts losing.