Concerns over the potential heavyweight clash between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua have grown over the past couple of days, and TalkSPORT’s Simon Jordan believes that Fury never even intended to fight ‘AJ’.
Speaking to Boxing Social after the Joyce-Parker fight, Jordan stated that he doesn’t think the all-British heavyweight showdown will happen. Instead, he believes that the recent drama and anticipation surrounding the encounter was all part of a bigger plan for ‘The Gypsy King’.
“I think that the Joshua fight and the idea behind it, is a sprat to catch a mackerel. I think he wants to fight Usyk. He wants to bring Usyk forward and make a better deal, he wants to fight in Saudi [Arabia] and he wants to take control of the situation.”
The TalkSPORT pundit is known for his extensive use of vocabulary, this time using the phrase “sprat to catch a mackerel” to sum up Fury’s game plan – meaning the WBC champion has risked a little, calling out AJ, to gain a lot, an undisputed fight with Usyk on his terms.
Jordan went on to say that there may be more to the proposed deal than meets the eye, hence the time being take for it to be signed and announced. He seemed to sympathise with ‘AJ’, who is often called out by Fury, and agreed with his decision to take the fight, despite just losing to Oleksandr Usyk.
“If you’re led to believe what Tyson [Fury] is saying and what Frank [Warren] is saying, then there is no reason for Anthony Joshua to not take this fight. I would suspect there is a bit more devil in the detail, but I don’t think that fight happens.”
With the proposed date of December 3rd being set for the fight, there is no time to waste in the negotiations to get the deal over the line. However, Fury has applied further pressure onto Joshua to sign the contract, announcing that he will call the fight off if it is not signed by tomorrow – something Eddie Hearn claims has ‘no chance’ of happening.