Eddie Hearn believes the Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua fight is off

While Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn spent a good deal of time talking about this weekend’s fight between Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn, he also took some time to field questions about the status of a fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. So starting with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s claim that he’s been stalling on signing the contract to let the fight die, Hearn responds:

“I mean, rival promoter blames the other promoter for a fight not happening — I mean, shock, horror. People surely aren’t thick enough to see that Tyson Fury has called two deadlines on this fight and the fight has passed, in Tyson Fury’s deadlines. The Monday deadline, which came from nowhere, and we sent our final version of the contract back.

“Again, people talk about putting up barriers — we sent our final draft back to sign. Not ‘we’re not getting back to anyone.’ We talk about arbitration, they want to appoint their partner as an arbitrator — that sort of stuff doesn’t work. Then we get another (deadline) on Wednesday, Tyson Fury says ‘we’re telling you now the fight is off unless you sign on Wednesday.’ I said, ‘it’s impossible.’

“That deadline passed, I have not heard back from George Warren since Wednesday. So as far as we’re concerned, the fight’s off. I mean, we’re happy to continue the discussions, we haven’t had any of those discussions. Again, no bad words to say about George Warren in any way, but at the end of the day you’ve got a guy putting in deadlines, telling us the fight’s off.

“At the weekend, or Friday, Derek Chisora received a contract for a Tyson Fury fight. So another fighter. So, in our mind, he’s not fighting Anthony Joshua. We’re more than happy to continue those conversations but what we’ve been told is that the deadline has passed, and so have the entire country by the way.

“So don’t necessarily blame Anthony Joshua for Tyson Fury pulling the plug twice on this fight. We have sent the final version of a contract back. They’ve come back with points, and we were told the fight’s off by the man himself. AJ’s training, he’s still ready for that date and we’ll see what happens.”