By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn has announced the mega-fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury has now been signed for their June heavyweight unification clash. The location of the fight will be done by the end of the month. Thankfully this nightmare is over.
The final signatures for the Joshua-Fury fight were signed last Saturday, with the following having signed off:
- Anthony Joshua
- Tyson Fury
- Matchroom Boxing
- MTK
- Queensbury
As Hearn puts it, Fury has many different companies with their fingers in the pie on his back end, which slowed things down in getting the fight signed.
All we can hope for now is the fight is entertaining to watch because we’ve seen some terribly boring ones from Fury in the past. Who can forget the snoozer between Fury and Wladimir Klitschko in 2015? That fight was so awful to watch, thanks to Fury.
That was the one in which Fury spoiled for 12 rounds, doing little more than slapping and leaning back with his head far over the ropes like a big bird. Then to top it off, Fury disappeared for 2 1/2 years, celebrating as if he’d done something special.
Anyway, if the Joshua vs. Fury fight is played out similarly to the Klitschko-Fury fight, the boxing public will be stomping mad because this fight won’t be shown on free TV.
Indeed, fans in the UK and U.S will need to pay to see Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) and WBC champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) fight.
You’d like to think that Fury and AJ would make it a complimentary deal for boxing fans to watch it for free, given what they’ve had to endure with the pandemic, but no, that’s not going to happen. Hearn hasn’t said what the going price will be for the Joshua vs. Fury fight, but it’s safe to assume it won’t be cheap.
For U.S fans, they’ll need to dig deep to watch the fight. It won’t surprise Gilfoid if they’re asked to pay $100 per household. I don’t know how much it’ll be in UK pounds, but you can expect it to go for a heck of a lot.
It’s good that Hearn has finally got the Joshua-Fury fight signed, as the boxing has grown tired of the incessant talk of the negotiations, and they wanted it done already.
The bad news is the location for the Joshua vs. Fury won’t be in the UK or the U.S, as the two fighters and their management teams want to maximize the revenue. As such, the clash will be staged overseas, possibly in the Middle East or Singapore.
“We’d like to get a site deal confirmed in the next month,” said Hearn to ESPN. “The hard part is always getting everybody to put pen to paper. But this was a major effort from all parties to get this over the line.”
“The hard part is always getting everybody to put pen to paper. But this was a major effort from all parties to get this over the line. You had rival promoters, rival networks, and rival fighters.”