By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn hasn’t given up on his dream of having all four heavyweight world titles on the line when or if WBC champion Tyson Fury and IBF/WBA/WBO champ Anthony Joshua meet up next year for the undisputed championship.
There are a lot of things that stand in the way of Joshua and Fury meeting up with all four belts up for grabs. Namely, the WBC wants Fury to defend against mandatory Dillian Whyte by next February, and he’s already saying he doesn’t want to do that.
Joshua vs. Fury doesn’t need straps
To compound the problems, WBO president wants mandatory Oleksandr Usyk to get his mandated title shot against Joshua. If Fury and Joshua both choose to satisfy those two mandatory defenses, then the earliest they’ll be able to meet is in the second half of 2021.
Giving up the belts is the easiest way out of this mess, but Joshua and Hearn are both hung up on the idea unifying the division. You can argue that it’s a marketing tool to grab a few more pay-per-views by advertising that the Fury vs. Joshua fight will have all four belts on the line.
I don’t think it’ll bring in more than a small handful of extra buys. The Fury vs. Joshua fight is already big enough to here; it doesn’t need to have the gimmick of more belts up for grab. It’s such a mess as it is having four titles in every division.
All Hearn, Fury, and Joshua are doing are empowering the sanctioning bodies by putting value in their belts rather than disenfranchising them by ignoring them and focusing exclusively on Fury’s lineal title as the belt they’re fighting for instead of alphabet straps.
Hearn talks Joshua-Fury
“We want to make sure that, when a Joshua-Fury fight does happen, it is for all the belts. The undisputed heavyweight championship of the world,” said Hearn to skysports.com.
“In our minds [Joshua vs Pulev] happens in November,” said Hearn.
It’s not a big deal if all the belts aren’t on the line for the Fury vs. Joshua fight, but it will be for Hearn. He’s been talking about wanting the undisputed championship between Joshua and Fury even before both of them were world champions.
The sanctioning bodies could spoil Hearn’s vision by forcing Joshua and Fury to either vacate or defend against guys that they have no desire to face.
If the sanctioning bodies get in the way, it would a good idea for Joshua and Fury to think of the fans and sacrifice the WBC and WBO belts by vacating them. Fans won’t care that those two straps aren’t on the line, as they don’t care that the selling point for the Joshua vs. Fury fight is that it’ll be for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
The only fans that care about that are the extreme hardcore students of the game that keeps track of records and how many belts are on the line. This kind of thing goes way over the head of the average Joe six-pack that watches boxing events.
Fury not looking past Wilder
“A lot of people say it’s a mistake to book fights in advance, but I never overlook any opponent, I always train hard, and I always dedicate to the fighter that I’m about to fight, not someone I’m about to fight in the future,” said Fury to ESPN.
“I’ll never take Deontay Wilder lightly because I know what he holds in both hands, and I know what kind of damage he can do when given the opportunity. So I’m going to train hard for Deontay Wilder, and put on an excellent performance and get him and then we move on and put Wilder to bed and move on to Joshua.
“I don’t think there are any terms that have been reached for the Joshua fight,” said Fury. “I just think both fighters have agreed to fight in 2021, provided that we come through our upcoming fights. I’ve heard it all before, to be honest,” said Fury.
It would be a mistake for Fury to assume that he’s going to beat Wilder in their trilogy match. After what happened to Fury in their first fight in 2018, he cannot afford to look past Deontay.
Fury doesn’t have the chin to look past Wilder. No matter how one-sided their previous fight was, Wilder is capable of knocking Fury clean out if he lands one of his right hands on his chin.
Tyson wants to face Deontay as soon as possible
“Fights like these have been agreed before and not materialized because one fighter has lost or whatever,” said Fury. “I’ve been in this situation before, and it didn’t happen. I’m not even going to concentrate on that fight [against Joshua].
“I’m only concentrating on ‘The Bronze Bomber.’ That’s the fight I’ve got next, whenever that’s going to be. We don’t have any date or venue set, so I can’t look a year in advance when I can’t see the future of this year.
“I’d prefer it to be this Saturday, and I’d prefer it to be at the home of ‘The Gypsy King’ in Las Vegas, Nevada,” said Fury when asked when he would like to fight Wilder next. “I think he’s [Joshua] got two mandatories. I read in the paper today that both mandatories [IBF and WBO] are saying they want their fight,” said Fury.
Fury’s promoter Bob Arum still hasn’t found the location for the Wilder trilogy match. Each time Arum is interested, he has different ideas for where the fight will take place.
The last thing we hear, Arum was talking about staging the fight in Sydney, Australia on Boxing Day on December 26. It would be shown on Christmas in the U.S, which would be a terrible idea.
Joshua still have Pulev to deal with
“He’s got his IBF mandatory in Kubrat Pulev, who is a tough challenge for anybody,” said Fury of Joshua, still needing to take care of Pulev. “And he’s also a tough Top Rank ESPN guy and a very tough guy and a well-schooled guy. He’s also got Oleksandr Usyk, who is a slick southpaw boxer, who is the WBO mandatory.
“So by no shadow of the imaginations does he have any easy fights coming up just like I have with myself with Deontay Wilder. So it’s a bit early to say anything is guaranteed to happen.
“As we’ve seen before, Andy Ruiz was the standing opponent on two-weeks’ notice, and he ended up knocking Joshua out, spoiling the party, and taking his undefeated record. Nothing is guaranteed, and nothing is certain in life, especially not in boxing,” said Fury.
Arum thinks Kubrat Pulev has an excellent chance of beating Joshua and thus ruining the plans for the Fury-Joshua fight in 2021. If that happens, then Joshua will face Pulev in an immediate rematch, and it’ll delay the Joshua-Fury battle until the second half of 2021.
I can’t imagine Pulev beating Joshua twice. Pulev doesn’t hit hard enough, and he’d old at 39. For Pulev to beat Joshua even once will be nothing short of a miracle.
Joshua needs to be careful that he doesn’t let Pulev land one of his right hands on his chin because he’s got decent power when he puts his weight behind his shots.
