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With the Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua negotiations continuing, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn, representing Joshua, has said many times he feels the deal is close, including just a few days ago, saying the fans “will get” the fight next.
“It’s very, very hard for Eddie to shut up. I told him, ‘Let’s get this over the line, let’s get this done, and then we’ll make a joint announcement.’ To stop Eddie is like stopping a raging river, he can’t keep his mouth shut.”
But Arum also said basically the same things Hearn has been saying:
“The negotiations have been pleasant, it’s proceeding like every big fight does. ... And all I can say is that the issues are gradually dwindling. That’s what you wanna do in this type of situation, you wanna diminish the number of issues. And now the number of issues is less than a handful, so I am very optimistic that this is gonna go over the line.”
To be clear, Arum’s message about Hearn should just be taken with some humor, this is not something that’s going to sink negotiations. Arum and Hearn have worked together in the past. They are from different generations, they have different points of view, but they work together. As Hearn has said many times, he feels that while Arum might trash anyone and everyone, if there’s business to be done, the business can get done. And Bob has taken much bigger shots at Eddie than this one.
Look, there’s every reason to believe we are getting the Fury-Joshua fight. But yeah, the number of updates without a deal will definitely be testing everyone’s patience by now, because the updates are nothing new. It’s just a negotiation for a huge fight going along, and it seems it will get done in due time. The last target Hearn had for the fight happening was June. It could be June, July, August — we’ll see. There are a lot of moving parts, and COVID isn’t helping anything here.