How Anthony Joshua reacted to Tyson Fury's latest fight offer
Anthony Joshua is not buying Tyson Fury’s latest attempts to get their heavyweight showdown on with Eddie Hearn revealing the former champion laughed off recent fight talk.
On Friday night, WBC champion Fury claimed a ‘draft contract’ had been sent to Joshua in efforts to stage their long-awaited fight at Wembley Stadium in September.
His promoters later explained it was a ‘formal offer’ sent to Hearn via email last week, the same terms that were provisionally agreed last year whereby Fury would take a 60-40 split of the purse and a 50-50 in a possible rematch were Joshua to win.
Fury has not fought since beating Derek Chisora last December and is eager to fight this summer, recently heading out to Australia where Demsey McKean and IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia have been named as possible opponents.
Given the history of the fraught negotiations between the two, Joshua has taken the recent call-out with a rather large pinch of salt.
‘I spoke to AJ, AJ laughed and said isn’t he fighting Jai Opetaia, or Demsey McKean, or Jon Jones, I said no, they’re telling us they want to fight you, but we’re fighting in August and September, that’s our plan,’ Hearn told IFL TV on Saturday.
‘I’ll go through the process and see how real this is. I believe George Warren, I think they’re in a really difficult spot, Tyson Fury.
‘He wants big money fights and AJ is the money fight for him, but no back and forth, just ‘we’ll talk’. Right now our plan remains the same, August and Deontay Wilder in December so we’ll see what happens in Saudi Arabia this week.
‘That’s our plan, that’s what we’re moving forward with this week, if we can’t make that happen we’ll 100% look at the Tyson Fury fight.’
Joshua’s camp have been in talks to fight Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia in December with the Olympian also hoping to fight in August – with a rematch against Dillian Whyte one option being discussed.
Hearn suggested that plan remains the priority for Joshua with talks with Saudi over the Wilder fight close to being settled.
‘We’re being told that deal with Saudi Arabia is on the verge of being closed,’ Hearn said.
‘But we will see. We are not closing the door to the Tyson Fury fight, we are just making sure that Anthony Joshua’s career goes according to plan and isn’t messed around by other people.’
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