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Home » Hearn warns Fury: Sign with Matchroom or Joshua won’t happen

Hearn warns Fury: Sign with Matchroom or Joshua won’t happen

Fury, who has worked with Warren in the past, is tipped to return in April or May and ultimately wants to land a fight with Anthony Joshua.

Should the 29 year-old sign on the dotted line with arch-rival Warren, Hearn says any clash with Joshua then becomes an impossibility due to TV rights.

“I think he probably will go with Frank which will make the fight unlikely won’t it? Obviously we are with different broadcasters. I don’t think it would warrant a dual broadcast with Sky and BT,” Hearn told The Independent.

“But to be honest, more worrying is that we are so far from a deal (because Fury is likely to sign with Frank Warren). This fight is unmakeable. It’s not even as if we are within 5, 10, 15 or 20 percent. Fury is a voluntary challenger for the titles,” Hearn said.

“Let’s make it clear that he has a lot of value in the fight, it’s not like we see him as 20 percent, but at the moment we should not even be considering this fight until we see if he can actually do something rather than just talk about but that’s all I see.

“All I see is someone that has got six stone to go and talks a good game but let’s see him back in the ring. Tyson Fury says it’s not about the money, it’s about the legacy but if you give me a load of money I’ll take the fight. Who Tyson Fury goes with is purely about who pays him the most money. It’s very simple. It doesn’t matter if it’s me, or Frank or Sid Snot.

“I said to him ‘we can’t talk about the Joshua fight now because you can’t expect to have a conversation about it when you haven’t boxed for two years.’ He might come back and stink the place out and have small value in the fight.

“He came back to me and said ‘right, I’ll make it really easy for you and give you a deal that you will accept straight away’. Then he said: ‘I want a 60/40 split and all the champion’s benefits. I want to walk second, it’s my name on the poster and I want choice of changing rooms’.

“It made me laugh, I said ‘that’s great, yeah, good joke’. But he was deadly serious. He says Joshua is only where he is because of him. Then I realised he was actually serious with those terms.

“(The truth is) He knows he will get mauled by Anthony Joshua if they fought now. I rate Fury, he’s hard to beat and awkward. He’s not exciting but he’s a messer who is skillful. But I’m sorry, you cannot come back after that period out and compete with AJ.

“He sees the AJ fight as two or three fights down the road so I have said let’s do those fights then we will make the big one. I’ve offered that, I’ve told him I’ll give him a couple and then the AJ fight,” the Matchroom boss added.