Frank Warren says when the money is right, Fury will sign!
For a number of months now, boxing fans have awaited the official announcement of Joshua vs Fury. If realized, this international super fight would crown the one true undisputed king of the heavyweight division. For their part, WBC World Heavyweight champion Tyson “Gypsy King” Fury (30-0-1, 21 K’s) and WBA Super, WBO and IBF World Heavyweight champion Anthony “AJ” Joshua (24-1, 22 KO’s) are game. Despite the principal characters’ obvious interest, the bout has yet to be announced.
AJ’s promoter Eddie Hearn has promised that an announcement would be made “next week” for well over a month now. Hearn most recently teased that an announcement could be made at the huge Alvarez vs Saunders prizefight. It was not. Well before this latest apparent stall tactic, Fury and his Top Rank co-promoter Bob Arum declared that they were walking away from the fight. Fury himself has maintained the sentiment that he will fight anyone but he wants to fight soon. Now, his co-promoter, Frank Warren of Queensbury Boxing, has supplied a bit of new behind-the-scenes information.
GET THE MONEY RIGHT!
While conducting an interview with SecondsOut, Warren revealed why Tyson Fury will not sign his portion of the contract.
“What is there to say until a contract is signed? You can only sign a contract when all the parties agree on it and we have a contract at the moment that all the parties don’t agree on, and we got a contract at the moment that Tyson Fury will not sign! One of the things in that contract that enable us to get over the hump is the guarantees. So, if the guarantees are there then it’s not a problem and that’s where it is. I’m not even getting down the road to say where the fight is going to take place, who is doing negotiations, because it’s all moot at the moment. And we’re now what, how many months on, four months on?”
“Until we agree to terms, until Tyson Fury, which is who we’re with, until he is happy with the terms it won’t get signed and he is not happy at the moment. I don’t know what Anthony Joshua’s position is because we have nothing to do with that…what it is is signing for a guarantee for the amount of money being paid. And until Tyson is satisfied that the money in that contract is guaranteed by a bank then it ain’t going to get signed!”
GOT TO SHOW AND PROVE!
Eddie Hearn has been extremely vocal about having secured overseas investors to cover the bill. Hearn even went so far as to say that Bob Arum was too old and inexperienced with such massive deals to understand the complexity of the situation. Well, until we get a solid signed contract, Hearn has yet to prove that he is any more knowledgeable or capable! Yet, the more time that goes by, it seems that this unification bout is much more fantasy than reality.
By: Bakari Simpson
