Eddie Hearn sees Tyron Fury “sometimes as fake” based on his reaction to the fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.
In the aftermath of the Joshua’s second consecutive loss to the Ukrainian, Fury took to social media to label the fight ‘one of the worst heavyweight title fights’ he had ever seen. He went onto claim that he would beat both men in the same night and called Joshua ‘out of his depth.’
AJ’s promoter caught up with IFL TV at the launch of his Champion series in partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism. During the interview he was asked again about Fury’s reaction to Joshua’s defeat.
“It wasn’t really talking about the fight, he was laughing about the fight. But listen, people have got to understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and people should be allowed an opinion.
But I just see it sometimes as fake. If you’ve been through these times that you talk about and you see someone going through tough times in front of your eyes – I just feel that you’d be a little bit more empathetic.
Now if you’re rivals and you don’t like him, and you want to goad him and laugh at his expense, I get that too. Sometimes it works both ways. But I just feel like if you’re seeing someone go through a situation that, maybe it wasn’t the same as yourself, but you saw signs that it might be similar, you might be a little bit more empathetic – but maybe we’re in the wrong game.
It’s boxing, and there’s a lot of emotion every way. I think it’s difficult in my opinion not to give encouragement to someone like Anthony Joshua in that moment. But, as you say, they’re rivals.”
Post-fight, Joshua took to the microphone to give an emotionally charged and confusing speech. Fury famously suffered from mental health issues during his years out of the ring – it’s this experience that Hearn believes should see ‘The Gypsy King’ being supportive when another fighter seems to be struggling themselves. However, he did go on to point out that boxing may not be the sport for that kind of solidarity.