By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn says they’re ready to sign the contracts for the June undisputed heavyweight match between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, and they’re just waiting for five signatures from different people involved.
Once everyone is signed, then Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) and Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will put pen to paper and get it done.
The negotiations have dragged on to the point where the boxing public exhausted and bored with the subject, and starting to lose interest in this fight.
Although it’s still a big fight for UK boxing fans, many Americans are sick of all the bickering and drama from the people involved.
After hearing Fury gripe about his ring rust from a year of inactivity, it seems painfully obvious that he’s going to pull that excuse out of his back pocket to defuse criticism from the fans should he lose to Joshua.
It’s so utterly predictable that it’s entirely wretched. It’s also an incredibly bad look on Fury’s part that he chose not to give Deontay Wilder his contractual rematch.
The way that Fury has chosen to dodge the fight, it looks like he’s afraid to take the risk of fighting Deontay again for fear of messing up his money clash against Joshua. The end result is the Joshua vs. Fury fight looks more like a money gray rather than a sporting competition.
“We’re already waiting for the signatures. The issue is there are four of five people that have to sign their contracts,” said Hearn to iFL TV about the Joshua vs. Fury fight.
“Everything seems to be agreed. We said go around and sign all the contracts, and we’re ready. We’ll sign the contract immediately when we have those and the fight is up and running.
“As of now, there’s no deal. I believe that is inevitable. It’s the natural process of whoever has got to sign the contract. This is where it gets interesting, we’re there. Pen to paper.,” said Hearn.
Hopefully, they get this fight done because if it drags on too much longer, they’ll need to push it into late summer rather than June. With Fury’s bellyaching about his ring-rust, don’t be surprised if he insists on taking a tune-up before meeting up with Joshua for his payday clash.
It would be nice to see Fury take the high road and give Deontay Wilder the rematch as part of their contract. If the shoe was on the other foot and Wilder was the one that was looking to dash without giving Fury a rematch after knocked him out, there would be a lot of grumbling from ‘The Gypsy King.’
All four titles will be on the line for the Joshua vs. Fury fight, so they can say it’s for the undisputed championship. I don’t think the fans give a fig about four titles being on the line.
They just want to see Joshua and Fury fight. They could have no titles in play for the fight and the boxing public would want to see it just as much.
With that said, there’s a point where the fans are going to get sick of waiting for these two British heavyweights to get their fight out of the way. If they’re still trying to hammer out a deal five months from now, the fans are going to wash their hands of these two heavyweights and move on.
“We’re still gunning for the end of June,” said Hearn about the date for the Joshua vs. Fury fight. “We’re talking about June. Can you sit there with any real confidence saying that we’re going to be allowed 100,000 people in June in Wembley?
“I don’t like to give people false hopes. I saw Bob’s interview yesterday. ‘Yeah, Wembley’s an option in Vegas.’ I don’t believe that, I don’t believe it is.
“Do you honestly believe Bob Arum gives a monkey for the UK fans? They’re going to say to us, ‘Where can we generate the most money to hold this fight?’ Ultimately, it’s going to be up to AJ and Tyson Fury to say, ‘Yeah, we’re happy with that venue,'” said Hearn.