David Haye seriously doubts that the mega-heavyweight clash between world champions Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury will get done before November.
Despite months of negotiations for the undisputed heavyweight match between AJ and the ‘Gypsy King’ Fury, there’s still no date and no site location for the fight.
The former two-division world champion Haye, who is no stranger to how difficult negotiations can be for mega-fights, strongly believes the Joshua-Fury match won’t get done before November.
In that respect, Haye is a little more pessimistic than Fury’s promoter Frank Warren, who told Talk Sport today that he believes the Joshua vs. Fury fight might not take place until August or September due to AJ’s trainer Rob McCracken will be in Tokyo, Japan for the Olympic games as a coach for the GB team between July 23 to August 8th.
McCracken can’t be in two places at once to coach Joshua and the GB team.
“I’ll be surprised if it happens before November,” Haye said to Sky Sports about the Joshua vs. Fury mega-fight. “If it does happen before November, fantastic.
“Knowing boxing as I do, whatever offer they receive, it’s going to need to be ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous to get it over the line, and if it does get over the line, God bless both of them,” said Haye of Joshua and Fury.
Haye could be right about the fight between the two superstar heavyweights needing to be pushed back to November.
It’s going to be rushed if Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn attempts to hurry the Joshua-Fury fight for July when they’re still hammering out the logistics and the money involved for the lucrative site fee.
With fighters expected to make over $100 million each, there’s no reason to rush the fight. Obviously, staging the fight in November won’t make WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) or the fans happy, but they may no other choice.
Fury is upset because he hasn’t fought since his win over Deontay Wilder in February 2020. He doesn’t like the idea of coming off a year and a half layoff to take on a fighter as talented as IBF/WBA/WBO champion Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs), but he may have no other choice.
If Fury chooses to walk away from the Joshua fight, he’s going to be expected to honor his contractual rematch with Deontay Wilder, and that might not be a walk in the park for him.
“They deserve every penny they earn because they’ve both put it on the line,” Haye said of Joshua and Fury.
“They’ve both taken their licks. Fury got off the canvas against Wilder, AJ got over his loss against Andy Ruiz Jr and came back with a victory, so they both deserve the richest prize in the sport.
“They both deserve to be in this big mega event. May the best man win when it finally does happen,” said Haye.
Joshua did well to come back from his seventh-round knockout loss to Ruiz in 2019 to avenge the defeat with a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision.