By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn could have signed Tyson Fury back in 2017 before he turned his career around by dropping a massive amount of weight. Hearn says he didn’t think Fury could lose all the weight that he’d packed on during his years of inactivity.
If Hearn had inked him, he would be sitting on a goldmine with the two top heavyweights in the world in Joshua and Fury signed with Matchroom Boxing. In hindsight, Hearn blew it by not signing Fury.
The way things are now, Hearn’s golden goose Joshua is on the verge of being plucked clean by Fury in 2021, with AJ potentially losing both fights. If that happens, Joshua’s career may be in the dumps as he moves into 2022.
Hearn says he could have signed ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), but he didn’t want to let him face the type of tune-up opposition that he wanted to fight.
The 6’9″ Fury had ballooned up close to 400 pounds during his layoff from boxing between 2015 and 2018 and he needed to take a couple of warm-up fights to get the rust out.
Hearn doubted Fury would come back
Hearn felt that Fury wanted too much money for the fights that he wanted to take, so he opted not to sign him.
Fury then signed with Top Rank and defeated Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta in two easy warm-up fights in 2018 before taking on WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in December 2018.
Fury and Wilder fought to a 12 round draw in a fight that a lot of boxing fans felt that Tyson deserved to win.
“I mean you could say Tyson Fury,” Hearn said to ‘Doing the Rounds’ about him making a mistake of not signing Fury to his Matchroom stable. “I had a chance to sign him. And I was in Monaco, I think I could have signed him.
“I didn’t want to give him the fights that he wanted to take at the time, because I thought it was just too much money and the fights weren’t good enough – and I probably should have done it, to be honest with you.
“I looked at him and I thought, ‘You ain’t ever going to come back anyway, look at the size of you,’ but he surprised everybody and how wrong I was,” said Hearn.
How good is Fury?
If Joshua beats Fury twice next year, it won’t be as bad for Hearn that he didn’t sign him. Hearn would still have the #1 heavyweight in the world in Joshua, and Fury’s career would be in a bad way.
With Fury, we really don’t know how good he is because he looked mediocre against Otto Wallin. Yeah, Fury beat Wilder earlier this year in stopping him in February, but the win isn’t nearly as impressive after what we’ve learned about Deontay having a biceps injury at the time.
For all we know, Fury’s career as a major player in the heavyweight division could end when he faces Joshua.
Fury and Joshua will be fighting for the first time in April, May, or June of 2021, according to Hearn. Speaking with Sky Sports, Hearn said the second fight between AJ and Fury will take place in November or December of next year.
Fury will be defending his WBC title on December 5th in the UK. He’s expected to take an easy fringe level opponent, possibly Agit Kabayel, or the 39-year-old journeyman Carlos Takam. The latter fighter isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies.