A Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua superfight once again hangs in the balance after AJ was given a deadline to sign up for that potential December 3 showdown.
Excitement reached fever pitch a couple of weeks ago when Fury offered Joshua a chance to challenge for his WBC and lineal heavyweight titles later this year. And initially it appeared negotiations were going well. A 60-40 revenue split was agreed by both sides with Fury as champion taking the lion’s share.
But now ‘The Gypsy King’ is clearly growing frustrated at the lack of a signed contract from Joshua and Matchroom, and says he will move on to another opponent for December 3 unless things are resolved by Monday.
Fury running out of patience
He told Queensberry Promotions: “I was optimistic three weeks ago but it shouldn’t be taking this long to sign a contract. We’ll know by Monday anyway, because if it’s not done by Monday, I’m moving on.
“I’m not waiting around for some guy who’s lost three of his last five fights.
“He’s lucky that I’m giving him a world title shot but I don’t mind chucking him a bone you know. But I don’t want them starting to dictate s*** to me.
“To me, he is an invited guest at my party. My rules, so you want to play the game, come to the banquet and take your seat.”
Broadcasters meeting on Monday – Frank Warren
Fury’s promoter Frank Warren meanwhile said a meeting will take place on Monday between the broadcasters involved – Fury is aligned with BT Sport while Joshua has a global deal with streaming platform DAZN.
He told IFL TV: “There’s a meeting on Monday, and I think that will be it one way or another. Hopefully we can get it over the line. There’s a meeting with TV broadcasters so we’ll see what happens then.
“Whatever happens, he’s fighting (on December 3). The facts of life are that Tyson and ourselves in some ways have bent over backwards to make this happen. Everything they’ve wanted, they’ve got – 60-40 split, the rematch clause – if that goes the wrong way a 50-50. And they wanted to go in December so we moved from the 12th of November to December.
“All the issues regarding finances, we’ve told them they can be party to every single contract. They can be party to the budgets and everything, because basically we are trying to make it happen. We are really trying to make this happen.
“So now we’ve got to sort out the situation with DAZN, and we’ll see where we go with that.”
