By Charles Brun: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says Eddie Hearn is “stalling” out the Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury fight so that it doesn’t happen.
Arum maintains that Hearn doesn’t want the Fury-Joshua fight, and that’s why he’s stalling it out. We don’t know if it’s Hearn that is the one that is behind the fight lagging.
Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) just signed a lucrative contract with DAZN, and there’s a lot of red tape involved in putting a fight together with Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs), who fights on another network.
As such, trying to put a fight together between AJ and Fury quickly is impossible. It can be done obviously if enough time is given to go through all the contract areas, but it might not be possible before December 3rd.
“Eddie Hearn is stalling everything because he doesn’t want the fight,” said Bob Arum to talkSPORT. “He’s stalling until it dies. I don’t think Joshua is part of that; I think Joshua wants the fight, I know Fury does, but Eddie doesn’t.”
“And why doesn’t he want the fight to happen? Because Joshua’s lost three out of his last five fights, and he figures to lose again if he fights Tyson Fury, and so Eddie is, in effect being an impediment.”
It obviously works in Arum’s favor if Joshua fights Fury right now because he promotes the ‘Gypsy King.’
If you’re Hearn, it makes sense for him to drag his feet. It’s not a good fight for Joshua to be taking after consecutive losses to Oleksandr Usyk. Moreover, Joshua last fought in August, and he’s not getting a lot of time to recover from that fight.
Hearn has got to be worried about Joshua jumping into a fight that he’s not properly prepared for. Would Arum give Fury the green light to fight Joshua or Joe Joyce if he was coming off consecutive losses and had been beaten in three out of his last five fights? I don’t think he would.
If Fury’s situation was identical to Joshua’s, I think it’s reasonable to assume that Arum would be against letting him fight Joshua or Joyce. It’s possible that Arum would be dead set against letting Fury fight either of those guys if his career was sinking into the quagmire the way AJ’s is right now.
Joshua is too much of a money maker for him to be taking a risky fight against Fury right now. To be sure, the fight would make sense if Joshua was going into it with a two to three-fight winning streak, and looking confident.