By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn feels that the boxing public should celebrate the signing by Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury for their heavyweight clash in June.
The Matchroom promoter Hearn doesn’t understand the negative comments fans and the media have been making since he leaked the news of the Joshua-Fury signing earlier this week to ESPN.
Unfortunately, the fans don’t know what to think about Hearn’s premature announcement about the heavyweight mega-clash because there’s still a long way to go before the match is officially done for June.
The date and location for the Fury vs. AJ fight still need to be decided, and there’s still a chance that the contest won’t happen.
Fury’s negative comments in media recently have made it clear that he’s not a happy camper going into this fight, and he might not go through with it.
Fans should celebrate the Joshua-Fury signing says, Eddie
“It does make me laugh. I’ve seen a lot of responses from the media,” said Hearn to iFL TV on the reaction from media on the Joshua vs. Fury fight. “I mean, it’s really not that complicated.
“We all want to do this fight; we’ve all worked hard to get this contract done. We’ve now signed the contract, and we now move forward to confirm when and where it’s going to take place.
“So yes, celebrate it because fans often say, ‘They don’t want it. They don’t want it.’ We all want it because we’re all signed, we’re all in.
“We appreciate the world is in a slightly different place than it was a year and a half ago.
“Ultimately, the interest that we’ve had and this is the biggest fight in boxing, and one of the biggest sporting events in the world means we will move quickly to present the best opportunities to the fighters as soon as possible to try and make these dates a reality.
“Everyone is keen to work together to make sure this fight is delivered,” said Hearn.
The fans would start celebrating the Joshua vs. Fury fight’s signing if they could trust that the fight is actually taking place.
When fans discovered that Hearn had prematurely revealed the Joshua-Fury signing news without the deal being done, they felt they’d been tricked.
So naturally, fans are upset and distrust the fight is actually going to happen.
Hearn wants Fury to start hyping the AJ fight
“Ultimately, we’ll be led by the site and the broadcasters,” said Eddie Hearn on when the Joshua vs. Fury fight will take place.
“But mainly the date of preference and the site. We had 15,000 in Miami, and we were allowed 4000 in Dallas last week.
“We may be allowed 70,000 in Dallas for Billy Joe Saunders and Canelo if we go there. So yeah, you’d like to think that by then, most of the world will be opened up for fans.
“I think he’s playing mind games. Don’t forget, he was supposed to fight in December, and he didn’t, couldn’t, whatever happened.
“So he’s probably a little bit angry. So he’s probably thinking, ‘Hurry up, is this going to happen?’ But a fight of this size does take time.
“He looks great, and he’s definitely not drinking 12 pints a day. I’m looking for the teams going out collectively, looking to create the best opportunities for the fighters.
“So everybody has shown their attention. I think that’s the best way to say this fight is on, and you can’t ask for more than that from anybody.
“We all want this fight. It’s the biggest fight in boxing. So hopefully, Tyson can get his mojo back and start talking up the sporting event of the year,” said Hearn.
Some boxing fans believe Hearn purposefully leaked the information on the Joshua-Fury signings so that he could put pressure on Fury to get him to agree to the site deal and date.
Fury is rumored to be angry about different details in the negotiations and that he wasn’t given a tune-up fight last December.
If Fury is angry, he sure as heck isn’t going to start promoting Joshua’s fight like a good one the way Hearn wants him to. Fury won’t be an obedient salesman for the fight if he feels he was given a raw deal.
Negotiation could go past the 28-day cut-off
“All I did was confirm to a journalist who asked me if the fight had been signed, and I confirmed the fight had been signed,” said Hearn about how he leaked to ESPN that the Joshua vs. Fury fight had been signed.
“So the singing and shouting from the rooftops will come when we can give you the official announcement of the fight, date, site, everything. That will be monstrous because the build-up is going to be outrageous.
“From the signing of the contract,” said Hearn about the 28 days they have to get the date and site for the Joshua-Fury fight set.
“If we were close to an agreement and it went a few days over…ultimately, if we want this fight to take place in the summer, we have to have some cut off point, and that’s a realistic time period to get this deal done with the site.,” Hearn said.
You have to believe that if the negotiations aren’t wrapped up in the next 28 days, it will not help to have the deadline extended. It would probably be pointless.
If Fury isn’t happy with how the situation has played out, it’s doubtful that giving it another week will change things. He obviously wants a tune-up, and he’s not going to get that unless the Joshua fight is pushed back into September or October.
Joshua will jump Fury
“I believe he (AJ) is the only guy who has the tools to beat Tyson Fury,” said Bellew to Talksport. “He’s the man who throws punches that are fast enough to land; he hits hard enough to drop him and hurt him.”
“I still stand by Anthony Joshua. I just think he will jump on him, he won’t care what’s coming back, and that’s the only way to beat Tyson Fury.”
It would be well worth it for Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) not to play around and start slowly against Fury the way he did against Kubrat Pulev last December.
The more chances Joshua gives Fury, the more likely that he’ll club him the way he did Deontay Wilder in the third round. That has to be one of the ugliest punches.
We’ve seen from Fury’s fights; it doesn’t work in his opponent’s favor to let him dance around, flicking jabs and clowning.
The guys who have had the most success against Fury, Deontay Wilder, Otto Wallin, and ‘Big’ John McDermott, applied pressure on him. You can argue that Fury should have losses to all three of those fighters.
Many boxing fans believe McDermott was robbed in his first fight with Fury in September 2009. We all saw what happened in Fury’s first fight with Wilder in 2018, in which the referee gave a count while he was out cold on the canvas.
In Fury’s fight with Otto Wallin in which he was badly cut in the third round and allowed to fight the entire 12-round contest without the match being stopped by the ringside doctor.
