Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn believes Tyson Fury and his team never really wanted the fight with AJ and they were looking to gain fame without carrying through with it.
If this was an intentional move by Team Fury, it was done to get the fans excited about seeing the Joshua-Fury fight to help build interest for a later time. In other words, it was strictly for marinating purposes.
We saw how big the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight eventually became after six years of being marinated by the promoters, one of which was Bob Arum.
It’s not likely that 89-year-old Arum will let the Joshua vs. Fury fight marinate for that long because neither guy is solid enough to last six years without getting beaten.
Heck, Fury might lost his next fight against Deontay Wilder on July 24th. Also, Arum isn’t going to wait forever because it’s unclear he’ll still be around in another six years to see Joshua battle Fury.
Former junior middleweight champion Sergio Mora is one of the many who have suspicions on whether WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) ever intended on taking the fight with Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs).
Joshua vs. Fury = Wild goose chase
“There’s a mastermind promoter, a Harvard graduate in Bob Arum, and a mastermind in mind games in Tyson Fury,” said Sergio Mora to the DAZN Boxing show on the subject of whether those two were ever serious about putting together a fight with Anthony Joshua.
“It might have been a wild goose chase,” Mora continued on the subject of whether Fury and his promoters were ever seriously interested in making the fight with Joshua.
“It’s a wrong look, for us to get teased like that for the undisputed heavyweight championship in the world, but it’s promoting 101.”
“I agree with Hearn and understand why he’s frustrated, but it’s part of the game and what makes us happy and upset.
“But it makes us urge and crave when it finally does happen. If they did it, they did it on purpose.
“It sounds far-fetched but I don’t put it past them, but it seems like too many things needed to happen for that to actually work out and it seems too evil and conniving.
“They’re geniuses, but I don’t think they’re evil. But I don’t put it past them,” said Mora.
There’s nothing evil about promoters letting a fight marinate to make it a bigger sell. But at the same time, many boxing fans become jaded and drift away from the sport when they fail to see a big fight happen year after year.
Just imagine an NFL season without a Super Bowl or Championship game. If all fans ever saw was a great wiping out woeful cellar dwellers in play-it-safe games, they’d be less likely to want to purchase tickets or watch the games on television.
If Fury and Joshua fail to fight soon, the fans are going to give up on them and see them as a couple of prima donnas.
Spencer Fearon: Eddie Hearn got played
“Eddie Hearn got played,” said Spencer Fearon to iFL TV on him making the mistake of negotiating the fight with Fury.
“If you know something is going to arbitration, and it’s the same judge that did the ruling for Lennox Lewis, you’re not going to win that.
“You didn’t know this guy [Fury] was going to arbitration? Bob Arum didn’t know this was going to arbitration? And Bob Arum is a lawyer. So don’t try and tell me they didn’t know. Somebody knew.
“John Fury said a long time ago that the [Joshua] fight wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes you need to forget about these aphabet boys.
“Larry Holmes was an all-time great, and he was never an undisputed champion. Hopefully, Tyson Fury can come out with a victory over Deontay Wilder, which is not a forgone conclusion.
‘When Tyson Fury’s mind is on something, he doesn’t perform to his best,” said Fearon.
Next time around, Hearn needs to think twice about trying to put together a fight between Joshua and Fury. If you know you got tricked once, that should be enough reason to wash your hands of the matter and move on.
It might be better if Joshua permanently forgets about Fury and focuses on fighting guys that aren’t trying to walk away from their contractual rematches. Also, if Joshua and Hearn believe that they were used for clout chasing by Fury, that’s another reason for them to ignore him for the remainder of his career.
If Fury loses to Wilder on July 24, all of this won’t matter. Fury’s career will be on the brink of being finished if Wilder knocks him out because he would need to fight him a fourth time. That would be a match where Fury would be in a dire position where he couldn’t afford to lose again.
