The much-anticipated meeting of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua has taken a huge step forward, with contracts for a two-fight deal reportedly being signed.
That’s according to Eddie Hearn, who revealed a venue is yet to be decided upon when confirming the news to ESPN.
“We’d like to get a site deal confirmed in the next month,” the promoter revealed.
“The hard part is always getting everybody to put pen to paper. But this was a major effort from all parties to get this over the line. You had rival promoters, rival networks and rival fighters.”
The announcement may come as something of a surprise, as Fury recently hinted that negotiations hadn’t progressed and he wasn’t training for the fight.
“You never really know with Tyson,” said Hearn. “It could be mind games. He could be having a bad day. He could be a little pissed off. Or he could be having a joke.
“One of the fascinations about this fight will be the build-up because they’re two totally different characters, two totally different personalities,” Hearn said.
“The mind games will be on another level for this fight. Tyson is very good at that. Anthony is excited by that…He’s so pumped, so focused, he hasn’t stopped training since the [Kubrat] Pulev fight [in December]. He’s like a caged lion. The buildup is going to be epic.”
Hearn insists the biggest hurdle has now been ticked off, and their attention will now turn to where the fight will be held.
“I actually feel we’ve done the hard part,
“Speaking for myself, Anthony and his team at 258 management [258 MGT], I know how hard we’ve worked hard these last couple of months and I just feel that this fight is so big it’s not a difficult sell. We’ve already had approaches from eight or nine sites. The offers have come from multiple countries in the Middle East, from Asia, Eastern Europe and America.”
Featured image credit: Getty
