By William Lloyd: Eddie Hearn says promoter Bob Arum is being disingenuous by telling the media this week that the hypothetical undisputed heavyweight clash between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury will be taking place in the UK in 2022 rather than abroad somewhere.
Hearn believes that Arum is just droning/waffling without being serious because he wants to try and build interest in the October 9th trilogy fight between Fury and Deontay Wilder.
According to Hearn, there’s no way Arum would be willing to stage the Joshua – Fury fight in the UK, knowing that he would get only half the commission that he would get if he staged the contest in a foreign country.
Recently, Hearn put together a massive $200M deal to stage the Joshua vs. Fury fight in Saudi Arabia on August 14, only to see it fold after Tyson lost his arbitration case with Wilder.
What made Hearn believe that Fury and his promoters never wanted the fight with Joshua was them failing to try and put together a step aside deal to give to Wilder to get him to move out of the way so that the Joshua-Fury fight could have gone ahead for August 14th.
Joshua vs. Fury won’t take place in the UK
“Do you honestly think Bob Arum would do the [Joshua vs. Fury] fight in the UK for half the money that is available elsewhere?” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV in reacting to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s recent comment that he wants to bring the Joshua vs. Fury fight to the UK in 2022 rather than staging it in a foreign country.
“I’ve never heard so much bollox in my life. ‘Yeah, let’s do it in the UK. The UK deserves it, man.
“I don’t see any problem making this fight.’ No, problem at all. It’s been absolutely smooth, hasn’t it. I don’t even think he’s [Arum] intentionally lying.
“I just think it’s waffle. When the money comes through, what I’ll do is say, ‘Bob, I saw your quote where you said you really want this fight. So as long as your main [Fury] is ready to take half the money. Are you good with that, yeah? That means half of your commission. Are you good with that, yeah?’ We’ll see,” Hearn said.
That would be surprising if Arum and Fury were willing to stage the fight with Joshua in the UK, given how little they would get in comparison to staging the bout in the Middle East.
Hearn thinks it’s silly to talk about the Joshua vs. Fury fight now because both fighters have to win their next contests before they can consider an undisputed clash.
Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) is defending his IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles against Oleksandr Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) on September 25th at the Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium in North London, UK.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will be defending his WBC title against Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) on October 9th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Although Joshua and Fury are both seen as favorites in their fights, it’s possible that both of them could lose.
Arum using Joshua vs. Fury talk to build Wilder fight
“That fight [Joshua vs. Fury] is not even worth discussing at the moment,” Hearn continued. “So they had their chance of making that fight, but they never had any intention or interest in making that fight.
“Now they [Top Rank] want to talk about that fight to help build Fury against Wilder, which is as flat as a pancake.
“So, we’re fighting [Oleksandr] Usyk. Joshua is fighting Usyk on September the 25th at Tottenham’s football club in an absolutely massive fight.
“Gold medal vs. Gold medal. Unified heavyweight champion against undisputed cruiserweight champion. You [Arum] do your thing, we’ll do ours.
“You win your fight and we’ll win purs, and after that, we’ll talk to you about how keen you are about doing it in the UK as well in February.
“It’s a lovely time to do a fight in the UK obviously as well. Bob will definitely enjoy Wales for that one, and then we’ll talk. But until then, don’t worry.
“We’ve got a massive fight [Joshua vs. Usyk] to do. It’s going to sell out on the first day. It’s going to do huge numbers on TV.
“We’ll concentrate on our business. That’s probably what we should have done. Concentrate on what we do,” said Hearn.
It does sound like Arum is using the Joshua vs. Fury talk to build interest in Tyson’s October 9th trilogy match with Deontay Wilder.