By: Sean Crose
If promoter Eddie Hearn is right, boxing’s long nightmare is coming to an end and Tyson Fury will be fighting Anthony Joshua for heavyweight supremacy this summer. After months of talks and negotiations dragging on through the Covid landscape, both sides finally seem to be pleased with what’s been presented before them. “Both sides have approved the site offer that they want to go with,” Hearn tells Behind the Glove’s Michelle Joy Phelps in an interview posted Thursday, “and now we’re just finalizing the site deal and we’re in a great place.”
While the location has yet to be given and the fight yet to be official, Hearns is clearly indicating that the much anticipated bout between lineal and WBC heavyweight champ Fury and WBA, IBF, and WBO titlist Joshua is on the verge of becoming a reality. “We just had five or 10 minutes together and it was good,” Hearn says of a meeting with Fury, “because I don’t represent Tyson Fury, so I don’t know what is in his mind. What he basically cemented in my mind was, this is the only fight he wants, and I know that’s the same with AJ.”
As Joshua’s promoter, Hearn has been going out of his way to let the public know that, despite the obstacles, he has been working mightily to make Fury-Joshua happen. Now, it appears that the man is breathing a bit easier. “It just good to say,” he claims, “right we’ve got the offer, we all approve. We’re moving forward now. We’re good.” Both Fury and Joshua are towering Englishmen who have essentially found themselves the last men standing in the heavyweight division’s post-Klitshcko era. In 2020, Fury was able to defeat Deontay Wilder in a rematch of their wild first bout, while in late 2019, Joshua was able to regain the belts he had lost to Andy Ruiz several months earlier.
The date and location of Fury-Joshua has yet to be given, yet there has been much talk of the battle going down in the middle east. Both Fury and Joshua have reportedly signed a two fight deal, meaning the loser of the first fight, should there not be a draw, will likely have the chance to redeem himself. “It has been agreed by both sides,” says Hearn, “the option that we will take, and you’ll get the date very soon and the official announcement.”