By Jeff Henninger: Anthony Joshua, his management, and his promoter Eddie Hearn are all waiting for Tyson Fury to sign his portion of the contract for the June mega-fight. All they need is a handful of signatures, and the biggest fight in boxing will be a done deal.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Hearn says the issue that is slowing down the signing is that Fury has so many different people with their fingers in the pie, and they all need to sign.
According to Hearn, these are the ones from Team Fury that need to sign:
- Top Rank
- Queensbury
- His management company
- Tyson Fury
With Joshua, there are fewer signatures required:
- Matchroom Boxing
- His management company 258
- Anthony Joshua
“We’re just waiting for them to sign,” said Hearn to the AK & Barak Show. “There’s quite a lot of people from their side who have to sign. From our side, it’s a little bit different.
“That process is taking longer than we expected. I did actually speak to Team Fury last night, who said that we should get it back in the next 24 or 48 hours, so we’ll see,” said Hearn.
Some boxing fans believe that WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) is dragging his feet because he’s not happy with his long period of inactivity since his last fight against Deontay Wilder in February 2020.
Fury, 32, doesn’t like to give advantages to his opposition, and in this case, Joshua will have a big edge over him. AJ just fought last December against Kubrat Pulev in a competitive fight that ended with Joshua stopping him in the ninth round.
In Fury’s case, his fight with Wilder was a pure mismatch last year. However, the first couple of rounds were mildly competitive. But after Fury hurt Wilder in the third, it was a rout from that point until Deontay’s trainer Mark Breland had the fight stopped in the seventh.
Fury had been counting on getting a tune-up fight last December against Agil Kabayel, but his management could not deliver the fight. It was bad timing for a tune-up, given the pandemic and other issues.
“I don’t know whether there’s some internal sorting out their pieces of the pie, but that’s not our business. What we’re saying is ‘we’re ready,” said Hearn in expressing frustration at the process.
You can understand why Hearn is a little impatient because he’s been waiting for this fight between Joshua and Fury to take place for many years. It’s like the Amir Khan vs. Kell Brook fight.
Hearn wanted that fight to happen for years, and it never did get made, unfortunately. It’s understandable why Hearn is anxious about the Joshua-Fury fight to get it over the finish line.