Bob Arum has no doubt in his mind who is to blame for the bungled Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua all-British super fight.
Arum, the head of Top Rank, which acts as Fury’s US promoter, was in London recently to announce Fury’s upcoming Dec. 3 fight against Derek Chisora. The fight will be the third time the two have met inside the ring; Fury has defeated Chisora in both previous outings.
The announcement followed weeks of drawn-out anticipation that Manchester’s Fury and London’s Joshua might meet in the ring. But negotiations, which appeared to be serious, unraveled quickly between Fury’s team, which includes his British promoter Frank Warren of Queensberry, and Joshua’s team, as led by his management team and promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom.
Fury had initially called out Joshua to a fight and put up some stiff terms, including a 60-40 purse split in favor of Fury. Joshua responded by agreeing to all the major points.
Arum, however, blamed Hearn for dragging his feet, a sign, to him, that Hearn was never interested in putting his charge in the ring with Fury. Joshua was coming off a tough loss to WBO, WBA, IBF champion Oleksandr Usyk in August.
“The Anthony Joshua fight should’ve been made, but Eddie, who’s a good promoter, for his own reasons, would not cooperate and get that fight done,” Arum told iD Boxing. “Why he took that position, I sort of imagine, but I really don’t know. It is what it is.
“AJ wanted the fight, because AJ’s a fighter, but Eddie Hearn didn’t want the fight to happen at this time. Now, there are a lot of reasons why I can speculate but he obviously didn’t tell me why he didn’t want to fight at this time. One thing I’m sure is that he didn’t want the fight to happen at this time.”
Joshua is expected to return to the ring in early 2023.