By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn gave an update on the $200 million heavyweight unification fight between WBC champion Tyson Fury and IBF/WBA/WBO champ Anthony Joshua on Friday, and he’s saying the deal could be done in 2 weeks.
Hearn is saying that he’s getting a mammoth amount of offers from the Middle East to stage the AJ vs. Gypsy King fight and other areas like China, Singapore, and the United States.
Interestingly, Hearn isn’t mentioning the UK as one of the areas where offers are coming in.
You would think that with both Joshua and Fury being British, Hearn would at least be considering staging the fight in that area of the world, but no, they’re not even in the running.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) and Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) are going to clean up with the green they’ll be walking away with for the first of their two-fight deal in 2021.
With each of these two giant heavyweights expected to take in $200 million from their fights this year, it’s going to be interesting to see if they can continue to motivate themselves.
If they lose their edge, Deontay Wilder come back and retake his throne as the top dog at heavyweight.
Joshua, 30, has a net worth of $80 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
What happens when he more than doubles his income after 2021? Will he still be able to drag himself out of bed in the morning to continue to hit the weight room and put in the work to stay on top of the heavyweight division?
“We’re back and forward with draft contracts,” Hearn said to Matchroom Boxing. “We’ve sent a draft contract, they’ve sent some minor changes, nothing too big, so again we’re moving in the right direction,” said Hearn.
By now, the fans already know the particulars about the split of the loot for the Joshua – Fury matches, but I’ll remind you.
The first fight will be split down the middle at 50-50, with Joshua and Fury each going home with a wheelbarrow filled with good clean cash. For the second fight, it’ll be 60-40 for the winner of fight #1.
In a recent interview, Fury complained of how Joshua will have an advantage over him as far as him being more active during the pandemic. Fury hasn’t fought since last year in February in his rematch with Deontay Wilder.
For his part, Joshua made a defense against Kubrat Pulev last December and looked sharp as heck. Listening to Fury complain, I felt that he wasn’t 100% mentally ready for the fight with Joshua.
I mean, Fury didn’t just briefly yap about not being active enough. He went on for five minutes on the subject, and it was clear that the man is anxious about the ring rust that has accumulated on him.
But obviously, with the tremendous amount of cash that he’s going to make from the Joshua fight, he’s not going to pull out and ask for more time.
Before that interview, the fight looked potentially like a 50-50 affair. Still, after listening to Fury drone on what inactivity can d to a fighter, it just sounded like he was coming up with an excuse to explain away his upcoming loss.
“The next two weeks, we hope for an official announcement, and then we go out and decide where this thing will take place,” said Hearn.
“We’ve had offers from the Middle East. We’re talking to Qatar, we’re talking to Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, we’re talking to Singapore, we’re talking to China, we’re talking to America,” said Hearn.
I bet Hearn can’t wait until the fight gets signed, so he doesn’t have to keep fielding the same questions repeatedly.
The man sounds tired, and I’m not sure what was going on with him wearing the baseball cap. That looked odd. Hearn had the look of someone that is just worn out from work.