Tyson Fury is preparing his return to the ring before the end of the year. (Photo: Adrian Dennis / AFP)
Apparently, the second withdrawal of Tyson Fury It will last less than eight months. The still world heavyweight champion of the World Boxing Council, who announced his goodbye to boxing in April and emphatically ratified it less than a month ago, has almost everything agreed to face the former monarch Antonio Giosuè by the end of the year, on a date that is the only point of contention at this time. Eighty million dollars up for grabs They configure a reasonably powerful enough to make the British leave very short retirement.
“The Battle of Britain” is the poster that has already been hanging from this fight which was quickly forged by a proposal from Fury. The original plan of gypsy king to end one of the least credible retreats in the history of the sport was a unification match with Oleksandr Usyk, holder of the belts of the World Boxing Association, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Organization. But the Ukrainian’s decision to rest until the second quarter of 2023 forced him to change his plans. Then Joshua’s name came up.
The challenge came through Instagram, a terrain in which Fury feels very comfortable. “You just lost a fight with Usyk and you currently have no fights. I would like to give you the opportunity to fight for the heavyweight world championship in the coming months. You’re coming out of a 12-round fight, so you’re fit, you’re ready. I’ll let you know a few months in advance. Let me know if you are interested. Otherwise I will choose another opponent “, he proposed to his compatriot in a video posted on his account.
The aforementioned picked up the glove, but asked that any negotiations be channeled through formal channels. It didn’t take more than a handful of hours for Queensberry Promotions, the company that manages Fury’s career, to send the terms of the offer to Matchroom Boxing, the company that manages Joshua’s interests. The proposal called for a division of the stock market 60% for the champion and 40% for the challenger.
The distribution seemed extremely beneficial to the applicant, who comes from two stark losses to Usyk (in September 2021 in London and last month in Saudi Arabia) and whose future seemed uncertain after that second setback. For reference, it’s worth mentioning that in Fury’s latest presentation, April 23 at Wembley, his opponent, Jamaican Dillian Whyte, took only 20% of the bag. And these days the Fury team is able to impose conditions on anyone, except in the case of a duel against Usyk.
Joshua’s team approved the deal and also the inclusion of an automatic rematch clause in the event of a win. “I think AJ deserves more than 40%, but he’s happy. Basically we accept the offer, we confirmed it this morning. The terms for that fight are fine, so we’ll see if we can sort out the other aspects. What I can tell you is this AJ is ready to fight in December, ”announced Eddie Hearn, CEO of Matchroom Boxing.
In that last statement by Hearn lies the crux of the differences in these hours. The challenger’s team expects the duel to take place on December 17 at the Cardiff Millennium, where Joshua faced Carlos Takam of Cameroon in 2017 and Joseph Parker of New Zealand in 2018. The champion’s team wants the match to be on November 26 at Wembley or on 3 December in Cardiff. “Those are the dates. Take them or leave them ”, warns the gypsy king to his potential rival via Instagram.
“I don’t know if this is a game to bring things down, say, ‘We tried to fight AJ’ and then fight someone for a lot less. Or if they want Usyk to fight for a lot more money. Or maybe they just want to fight. We are going through all these processes, “speculated Eddie Hearn, a specialist in this type of negotiation.
Beyond the words that are heard in these hours, the money that could be at stake suggests that the differences will be resolved and the most anticipated battle of recent years in the United Kingdom could take place, which was to take place in August of last year , when both were champions, but it didn’t help after an American judge ruled that Fury had to face Deontay Wilder for the third time before, as stipulated in the contract they had signed before the second race.
At Queensberry Promotions they are already making numbers and rubbing their hands. Frank Warren estimates that two million pay-per-view tickets could be sold tonight. At a standard price of £ 30, this would generate £ 60 million. And in a stadium like Cardiff’s Millennium, where the fight between Joshua and Parker attracted 78,000 people, another 10 million could be billed for ticket sales, which would bring the collection to 70 million pounds (80.6 million euros). .
Source: Clarin
