Eddie Hearn has added yet more hope to a potential Tyson Fury – Anthony Joshua clash, saying that despite there being things in the contract that have to be worked out, all issues are ‘solvable.’
It turns out that what might become the biggest boxing event in British history was born via Twitter video, followed by George Warren, son of Frank, reaching out to Eddie Hearn to say “what do you think?”
From then, whilst fans were pouring doubt on the idea of the fight online, it appears things have been moving forward behind the scenes.
Eddie Hearn sat down with IFL TV to provide an update, covering the main questions that have been raised during what seems like an unusually rapid fight negotiation. In general, one could describe him as quietly optimistic.
“I don’t want to get people too excited because I have my doubts, but what I can tell you is AJ’s ready to fight him in December, the offer of that fight – we’re saying it’s fine, so let’s see if we can iron out the other bits and see where we get to.”
On the purse split, Hearn, and more importantly AJ, are happy to accept the 60/40 share.
“I think he deserves more than 40%, but he’s happy. And I don’t make the decisions, he does. So I went back this morning and said ‘we accept 60/40.’”
Moving onto when the fight might happen, it was reported this morning that the contract sent to Matchroom mentioned a November date. This was another potential sticking point that seems can be cleared up nicely.
“Interestingly, they [Queensbury] have December 17 held at Millennium Stadium, so that’s perfect for us. That was the date I think he was going to fight Derek Chisora.”
Competing TV deals was another point where many felt the fight would fall. According to AJ’s promoter, the conversations have already started to keep all parties happy.
“AJ has an exclusive global deal with DAZN, but already me and George have been talking about ways to share that with BT [Sport] et cetera. So, in essence, we accept the offer.”
Finally, on the rematch clause, Hearn confirmed that it was in the contract and that his team are in the process of renegotiating the suggested split should AJ win and the second fight take place.
“It was offered at 50/50. We think that if you’re saying you’re the champion and you should get 60/40, we believe that when AJ is the champion that split should be reversed. It’s very straight forward of an agreement.
They want the rematch clause, we’re not moaning about the rematch clause. He’s the champion. We’ve had rematch clauses in our agreements when AJ’s been champion, so we don’t have a problem with the rematch when AJ wins.”
All of this seems positive, perhaps surprisingly given the history between the two camps, although it’s important to note that we’ve not heard the Queensbury take on all of these potential issues. There’s no doubt that will come soon, bringing with it plenty more talking points.
Still, as we wait for the collapse in negotiations that some say is inevitable, the longer it doesn’t come the more we have to admit that we may just have a fight on our hands here…