Top Rank’s CEO Bob Arum, who co-promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, says a potential unification with IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua is not taking place in July or August.
A few days ago, Arum explained to BoxingScene.com that Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, was taking too long to secure a finalized agreement with respect to the site deal.
The fight was being targeted to take place in Saudi Arabia, for late July or August, with Hearn working a site deal worth a reported $150 million.
But in recent days, Arum and Fury’s other co-promoter, Frank Warren, expressed their frustrations with receiving a finalized binding site agreement.
Arum stated to BoxingScene that he hadn’t spoken to Hearn since last Tuesday.
While Hearn claims the deal is ‘done’ and only a finalized site agreement is outstanding, Arum disagrees.
Arum says there are other issues, besides the site fee, and strongly believes it could take several months to work everything out.
And Fury, inactive since February 2020, wants to move forward with a different fight in the summer.
“It will take months for the Saudis to do their due diligence on such a huge deal,” explained Arum to The Telegraph. “It is not just a site fee, there are ancillary demands from the Saudis stretching into the broadcast deals and other things, it could take months for it all to play out. It could even take until 2022 the way it looks right now.
“The fight in July or August is dead in the water as far as we are concerned. The two fighters need to go and have other fights this summer while the negotiations for that fight in the Middle East conclude.
“It is absurd what Hearn is saying that it is a done deal. If we had just done a site deal without all the other complications that have arisen, we would have a fight by now. Tyson Fury is fuming about it and is refusing to keep waiting.”