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Eddie Hearn, promoter for former two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, has doubts about the seriousness of Tyson Fury’s offer to face Joshua in December.
On Monday, Fury called for a fight with Joshua, who last month lost a twelve round decision in a rematch with WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury was initially pushing to face Usyk, but the Ukrainian boxer is not planning to return again until early 2023.
Fury has been out of the ring since defending his WBC heavyweight title in April.
He announced his retirement in the aftermath of his last fight. Then months later he called for a trilogy bout with Derek Chisora, but then retired from the sport once again – and then called for a fight with Usyk.
Because Fury has flip-flopped his career status numerous times throughout the last few months, Hearn has no idea if the ‘Gypsy King’ is simply making statements to create headlines.
“Fury’s outstanding at getting the public to believe absolute nonsense,” Hearn said to Talk Sport. “It worries me actually what people do believe, if you look at the timeline over the last two or three weeks, it’s unbelievably bizarre. Personally, I don’t believe Fury is serious about this, but if he is, which I said to the Warrens last night, 100% we will sit down and make the fight.
“I would love to get really excited about this, because it’s the fight that I get stopped in the street for more than any fight that could be made and it’s a fight that AJ has wanted for a long time. Don’t forget, we signed for this fight last year before the arbitration forced the Deontay Wilder fight for Tyson Fury. The message is quite clear from AJ, we don’t want to get involved in a backwards and forwards, we want the fight, it’s the fight he’s wanted for a long time.
“We had plans after the Usyk defeat to come back in December and then go again in March, get active and get the rhythm going again and then try and fight for the world heavyweight title. But, I know having spoken to AJ, if that fight is there and they’re serious, which I have my doubts about, but for the good of trying to make it happen let’s believe Tyson Fury. I said to George Warren from Queensberry last night, get the details and the offer over to us and I’ll take it to AJ, he’s ready to go.
“We didn’t expect this opportunity, but it’s a great opportunity to fight for the world title in the biggest fight in boxing and we will definitely look at it.”
According to Fury’s co-promoter, Frank Warren, they are very serious about making the Joshua fight.
They plan to send Hearn an offer on Tuesday – with Fury already stating that he’s going to offer a 60-40 split.
“It’s us who have made the approach to give AJ a great opportunity to get himself back into the top level against the world champion Tyson,” Warren told Talk Sport.
“He’s willing to make that voluntary defense, so we’ll send the offer across today and then they’ll have to look at it and decide whether they wanna grab this with both hands. To his credit he has come out saying that he’s up for it. I’m not bad-mouthing them or the other side, all we’re interested in doing is making this fight. The terms we are going to put forward I think are very, very fair. Tyson is being extremely fair.”