Promoter Eddie Hearn explains Joshua’s reason for agreeing to Fury’s terms given threat of the WBC heavyweight champion retiring
Anthony Joshua agreed to the “take it or leave it” terms laid out by Tyson Fury because he believes this is his “one and only chance” to fight the WBC world heavyweight champion, says his promoter Eddie Hearn.
Joshua has agreed to meet Fury at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on December 3 in a ‘Battle of Britain’ showdown, although Hearn did confirm that they are still awaiting the arrival of an official fight contract after terms were suddenly agreed last week.
Hearn, in Las Vegas for the trilogy fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin on Saturday night, explained that the desire from Joshua’s camp to take the fight following consecutive defeats against Oleksandr Usyk stemmed from two reasons.
“AJ’s always believed he can beat Fury, No 1, and No 2, I think he thinks this is my only chance because if Fury fights Usyk [for the undisputed title], win or lose Fury will retire or might just never fight again.
“I think win or lose against Fury there are still huge fights there. I think if Joshua was to lose to Fury it doesn’t really change anything in terms of his position right now and if he beats him, he’s God. So I think that’s why the upside of the fight is huge.
“We were looking at opponents for AJ for December and his list is very different to my list,” added Hearn. “He’s not interested in fighting under-par opponents that he’s just going to get no credit or respect for, and straight away when I asked him about this fight with Fury, he said ‘let’s do it’.”
Although Joshua has already started his fight camp at Loughborough University, while Fury has begun his preparations in Morecambe, Hearn admitted that he will remain slightly sceptical until the fight contract is signed, involving both fighters, their promoters, and the broadcasters BT Sport and DAZN.
Frank Warren assured Telegraph Sport on Thursday that final contracts were being sent to Joshua’s representatives. Hearn admitted that they are looking at alternative opponents if the fight with Fury fails to materialise for any reason. “I can’t put AJ’s future in the hands of Tyson Fury so whilst we’ll be as positive as we can, I need to have Plan B up my sleeve because this might not happen.
“But in terms of timeframe, we need by the end of this week to be in the position where we’re proactively going backwards and forwards on the contract, the broadcasters need to have their discussions – DAZN and BT – which I don’t think will be a problem. It’s actually not that complicated, it was more complicated previously because it was in the Middle East, they were controlling the rights, and different broadcasters. It was a bit of a mess really in the end but this way is actually a lot simpler than previous discussions.”
Having accepted outline terms for the contest last Friday, involving the date in Cardiff and a 60/40 purse split in Fury’s favour, Hearn explained: “Last week obviously Fury came out on social media – we’d not expected anything, we’d not anticipated anything, and then George Warren [Frank Warren’s son, of Queensberry Promotions] called me and said look he’s serious, what do you think? I said, ‘well I don’t know, I need to speak to AJ but is he really serious because I don’t believe him’.”
Hearn and George Warren talked through the terms, and Joshua was receptive. “He said ‘well let’s do it, I accept, and if they are bluffing we’re going to find out anyway but I want to do the fight’, so we went back on Friday, I had a breakfast meeting with George Warren on Friday and we talked through a number of things about the fight, and then Friday evening I accepted the terms in writing to George Warren and we then agreed, because of the Queen’s passing, to keep it under wraps for now and then on Monday AJ wanted to just put his statement saying ‘we agree to all your terms’.
“So let’s get the contract, and if they’re genuine, and George tells me they are, then I think the fight will get made. I think it’s just going to come down to if Fury really wants to do the fight. It might have been a bluff, or a bit of publicity that actually turns into it happening, or maybe it was genuine from the start, or maybe it’s just a ploy to get more money out of another situation. I don’t know, but we just thought rather than mess around, let’s just accept it.”
For Joshua, it is an immediate, yet dangerous route back to another huge fight night. “AJ is thinking that he has always wanted to fight Tyson Fury – and don’t forget we signed for the fight a year ago before the Deontay Wilder stuff – and he thinks this is the only chance he’ll get to fight Fury,” Hearn added.
“Sure, it would have been better to come off a victory but we’re here and he’s coming off a decent performance, he’s going back to face an orthodox fighter and he just fancies the fight and fancies his chances. So he’s willing to roll the dice.
“I think it’s win/win for AJ honestly like I think people say wow fair play for stepping up to the plate and the other flipside is if he wins, all of a sudden he beats Fury. This is really one where the belts don’t matter, I know it’s for the WBC world heavyweight title which would be a great title for him to win but really it’s the fight.”