George Warren, the man negotiating with Anthony Joshua’s team on behalf of Tyson Fury, has given his side of the story as to why the all-British heavyweight mega-fight has fallen through for the second time in the space of a year..
Earlier in the week Eddie Hearn claimed that talks between the teams had fizzled out and that Matchroom had not heard from team Fury since last Wednesday.
“Tyson Fury says we’re telling you now the fight is off unless you sign on Wednesday. I said it’s impossible. That deadline passed, I’ve not heard back from George Warren since Wednesday.
So, as far as we’re concerned, the fight’s off.”
George Warren, the son of hall-of-fame promoter Frank, has given a different version of events and has accused Joshua’s side of showing ‘no ambition’ to get the deal done. Speaking to talkSPORT, he said:
“I would say there was no ambition on their side to help me try and keep the thing going, that’s what it felt like by the end of it.
I heard Eddie say the last time we spoke was on Thursday. The truth of the matter is we were waiting for a turnaround on a contract to come back on Wednesday evening.
We didn’t get that, we instead got an email from Frank Smith who obviously works for Matchroom, to ask us if we were still up for having discussions.
Quite quickly after that, Eddie and I spoke in the night. It was left that he was gonna email me something over to the extent of dealing with what they declared as their final issue related to the way that we drafted the contracts, which was related to our position of having final say.
The Queensbury promoter went on to detail how a lack of communication from Matchroom ultimately killed the deal.
“It fell down because quite frankly we got to a point with them where communication coming back from them and the substance of that communication was lacking.
I tried to call Eddie a couple of times on Thursday, he didn’t answer my calls, didn’t get back to me. I briefly spoke to Freddie Cunningham [of 258 MGT] on Thursday. It was left that he was gonna come back to me and let me know their position on how quickly they wanted to move on this thing.
I chased them up with a phone call, didn’t get a return, didn’t hear back from them on the text that I sent them.
And the last bit of communication was myself and Frank Smith, we spoke on Friday relating to a different fight that we’re looking to try and finalise with Matchroom.”
When asked if there was still any chance of making the fight this year, Warren said that it was unlikely – which means that ‘The Gypsy King’ is short an opponent. Asked about the rumours surrounding Derek Chisora filling that space, the promoter didn’t go into too much detail, but didn’t rule out what would be a trilogy with ‘Del-Boy.’
We are obligated to provide Tyson with fights. He’s got an opportunity to have a voluntary defence of his title.
So there you have it. Following the initial positive signs, the fight between Fury and Joshua now looks dead in the water. If that does turn out to be the case, it may leave fans wondering if it’s destined to just not happen at all. Sadly, it’s an all too common feeling in a sport that’s as frustrating as it is exhilarating.