By: Sean Crose
Don’t shoot the messenger here, but it appears that the beyond long awaited heavyweight title matchup between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua might truly be set, and an announcement imminent. “That fight is done and you’ll get an announcement very soon,” Joshua promoter and Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn told Fight Hub TV’s Marcos Villegas on a video released Friday. “Lot of people think we’re going to announce Saturday,” said Hearn. “We might.”
According to Hearn, “Fury’s on board. AJ’s on board. They all signed. They all agreed to the site agreement.” Still, Hearn makes it clear in the interview, there’s a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross. “But it is a lot of money and unfortunately, I can’t just tell the lawyers to hurry up,” he says. Plus, there’s the matter of different outlets wanting to be in on the announcement. As Hearn makes clear, Fury-Joshua “has three or four other broadcasters (besides DAZN, who will be broadcasting Saturday’s fight between Hearn represented fighters Canelo Alvarez and Billie Joe Saunders exclusively) who would quite like to be in on the announcement.” The word Hearn chooses to use for the announcement date is “Saturdayish.”
The public has frankly grown beyond exasperated waiting for the match between lineal and WBC titlist Fury and WBA, IBF, WBO and IBC titlist Joshua to be announced. Hearn has been teasing an announcement now for some time, which has led the whole affair at this point to induce eye rolls. There are signs, however, that this time, Hearn may be hitting his mark. For Fury, who has been openly critical of Hearn regarding the Joshua fight, has grown quiet in his criticism in recent days. What’s more, the towering fighter actually went on Hearn’s podcast this week – a good sign if ever there was one.
“The fact is, we’re coming through a pandemic,” Hearn says in the interview. “We got sent the site contracts last Saturday. There’s four sets of lawyers going on it all at different times zones. We’ve been on the phone all week.” In other words, making the bout a reality has been no easy task. Understandable. But so is fan impatience. Major fights can now literally take years to become a reality – if they come to fruition at all – a thoroughly ridiculous aspect of the contemporary boxing game. Should Fury-Joshua become a reality, though, and should it be a good fight, all will most likely be forgiven.