Eddie Hearn ‘knew he was going to get blamed’ for the failed negotiations for a fight between his man, Anthony Joshua, and WBC Heavyweight Champion, Tyson Fury.
During a live event in the lead up to his card in Abu Dhabi, the Matchroom promoter was asked about the talks between himself and Fury’s team that ultimately amounted to nothing.
Before he could answer, a member of the audience shouted ‘you pulled him out’ – a reference to the theory that Hearn didn’t want his fighter in with Fury after two losses to Oleksandr Usyk. His response, which was all in good spirits, was caught by IFL TV.
“Leave off! I knew we were gonna’ get blamed. Basically, what happened is Anthony Joshua lost to Oleksandr Usyk. We all saw that mentally that was a very tough defeat for him. Tyson Fury does what Tyson Fury does – came out on Instagram, you know, stuck the bait out there for AJ, called him out, and AJ told me ‘I want the fight.’
Should he have accepted the fight? Maybe not at that moment, but, ultimately, he’s the boss and he wanted to fight Tyson Fury. We started negotiations with Queensberry – it actually went quite well – and then as things are going well all of a sudden Tyson Fury pops up on Instagram and says we’ve got to sign the contract by the end of the day.”
Hearn went on to discuss Fury, commenting on the information he puts out and how people perceive it.
“He’s a bit backwards and forwards at the moment. I think people over the last couple of weeks have just seen maybe a different side to him. But he’s very clever, Tyson Fury. I mean this is the guy who, when he fought Deontay Wilder, said he’s gonna give his entire purse to the homeless. And I still get people coming up to me today saying ‘I love Tyson Fury because he gave all his money to the homeless.”
Someone from the crowd intervened, asking ‘did he not?’ Hearn responded:
“Did he not? Did he f*ck.”
The promoter went on to praise Fury’s skills in the ring, calling him a tremendous fighter and saying he was proven wrong when he predicted both Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder to beat him.
Another heckler in the audience finished the exchange by exclaiming ‘it has to happen’ – Hearn then joked that he should join the meetings for the next round of negotiations between Team AJ and Team Fury – and it sounds like a pretty good idea to us.