Though the deal is reportedly in place for two fights between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, don’t count your chickens just yet.
Fury, the WBC titleholder and considered universally No. 1 man at heavyweight (unless you’re the WBA, IBF, or WBO, but who cares?), Tweeted out this notice on Wednesday:
That’s pretty clear without actually saying a world. It’s also worth noting one thing Tyson’s dad John Fury told Boxing Social:
“All I can hear is ducks farting left, right, and center. The lot of them — Bob Arum, Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn, the full lot of them. They’re farting worse than ducks. They can’t put it on in this climate. There’s no money for it. Nobody wants to pay that kind of money with no crowds. … Only the Saudis have got (the money), and they ain’t jumping up and down to put it on, are they? I’ll tell you why: The timing’s wrong for it, the timing’s all wrong. We’ll fight, anyway, we’d love to fight. We get paid.”
It is going to take a lot of money to get this fight actually in the ring, and John is probably right that they’ll need somewhere where you can have not just fans, but a large-scale paying audience, as well as a huge site fee. Canelo-Saunders is being looked at for 60,000 fans in Texas on May 8, but the money for that fight from AT&T Stadium isn’t what the promoters will want for Fury-Joshua. Maybe Vegas could come up with it for Allegiant Stadium, but it’s a big “maybe” and depends on a lot.
I wouldn’t count out the idea that this might not actually happen in the summer. Eddie Hearn has said July, but Eddie Hearn has said a billion things already.
On the other hand, Tyson has a habit of trying to throw a late curveball right before he knows a major development is going to be reported, so keep that in mind.