Eddie Hearn has responded to claims from Tyson Fury’s side that Anthony Joshua has rejected a shot at the WBC Heavyweight title.
The offer was made ad-hoc by Fury last week for a September fight, building on the already worked-out terms from 2022. Joshua’s side were reluctant to deviate from their plan of a fight in August and Deontay Wilder in December, though, and ultimately declined.
Hearn told Boxing Social that the fight was a ‘hope’ rather than anything solid.
“We don’t feel comfortable – Anthony doesn’t feel comfortable – in scrapping those two fight plans in the hope of a Tyson Fury fight.”
“I don’t know whether this is a bit of PR from Queensberry, but nothing’s changed. Whenever they come out and say ‘oh AJ’s turned down the fight against Tyson Fury’ – come on, everyone’s wiser than that now. You’ve only got to look on the comments on social media. Last week he was fighting four different people.
Tyson Fury is really in no man’s land. And the reason he’s in no man’s land is because he wants massive money for a big fight – and if he’s not fighting AJ or he’s not fighting Usyk, which he isn’t at the moment, who’s he gonna fight?”
The promoter said he wasn’t sure what was going to happen in terms of Fury’s timeline, arguing that there was nobody out there who could fill the role of opponent for what was required.
He also believes that a September bout is risking lucrative and potentially legacy-defining fight plans for the end of the year.
“Everyone’s under a lot of pressure right now, cause Tyson Fury hasn’t fought since December and that was Derek Chisora. We’re now in June … Now when you talk about fighting in September, if he’s in any kind of fight, he ain’t gonna fight Oleksandr Usyk in December, which is Saudi’s plans.”
Finally, he confirmed the plan for Joshua for the rest of the year.
“Nothing has changed since last week. We have a plan to fight August the 12th and then December.”
Tyson Fury has responded to the news on Instagram by branding both Joshua and Usyk ‘pussies.’