Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has officially closed the door on a potential undisputed heavyweight showdown between AJ and WBC champion Tyson Fury from taking place this year in December.
Hearn says that with Fury’s title defense against Deontay ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder being delayed until early October due to his COVID-19 case, it’s now impossible to stage the Joshua-Fury fight this year.
Hearn said he’s not certain that Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will fight Wilder in October. The Matchroom Boxing promoter Hearn accurately predicted that their July 24th fight wouldn’t take place, and now he’s doubtful whether the Fury-Wilder III trilogy match will take place in October.
That fight isn’t entirely hinging on whether Fury recovers from his COVID-19 in time to fight in October. According to Hearn, he has doubts about the ticket and PPV sales. The Fury-Wilder 3 fight needs to sell well to cover the costs of the purses for the two fighters.
If the fight is bombing in terms of ticket and PPV sales, it will be bad for the promoters of the event. Fury got sick this time, but if the fight isn’t selling for October, what happens then? Does Fury can sick again, or is Wilder that comes down with COVID-19?
Joshua vs. Fury being targeted for early 2022
“Fighting September 25, it’s very difficult to do a fight in December,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV about the Joshua vs. Fury fight needing to be delayed until 2022.
“And a lot of our conversations now about the undisputed fight are end of January, February,” Hearn said.
It’s a bad idea for hearn to start counting his chicks before they’ve hatched. By assuming that Fury will beat Wilder in their trilogy in October, Hearn is making a mistake.
Fury might not win, as he looks thinner, older, and not the guy that beat Wilder last year in February. He looks like he’s aging has accelerated in the past 18 months, and at this point, he could get beaten by Wilder or any top-five heavyweight.
Hearn put in a lot of work to negotiate a site deal for the Joshua vs. Fury fight for August, but it was all for nothing.
An arbitrator in the U.S ruled that Fury must abide by his contract to give Wilder a rematch, which he had attempted to walk away from.
It was a bizarre move on Fury’s part to try and ignore the rematch clause, but there was a lot of money to be had for him in facing Joshua.
Wilder is someone that could ruin those plans with one wave of his mighty right hand. But unfortunately for Fury, he couldn’t walk away from the rematch with Wilder, so here he is, still trying to get it over with.
October 9th is the tentative date for the reschedule trilogy match between Fury and Wilder. But that could change if Fury’s illness lingers on.
If Hearn’s suspicions are correct about the Fury-Wilder fight being postponed due to poor ticket sales for their July 24th match, it’s anyone’s guess whether we’ll see another postponement.
If you keep kicking the Wilder vs. Fury 3 fight down the road, it may snowball big enough due to the months of marination to the point where boxing fans are excited about it. For that to happen, Wilder needs to help out with the promotion and take off his headphones to assist with creating interest.
“So, it probably helps [that the Tyson Fury vs. ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder trilogy match was postponed],” said Hearn. “Fury might’ve wanted to do another fight in November or December. And then the whole thing is, like, never-ending.
“I don’t even know if [Fury vs. Wilder 3 will] happen in October. Who knows?” said Hearn. “At least if that fight [Wilder vs. Fury] does happen and AJ beats [Oleksandr] Usyk successfully, then we’ve bought fought around the same time, and then we can try and make the undisputed fight.”
Complete and utter farce.