OFFICIAL Breaking news: Hearn calling out team Fury...saying they didn't want the AJ fight

This Fury ducked AJ narrative is hilariously dumb. He had a contract to fight Wilder again but instead of sticking to it because it was thought there was a date when it expired legally, he walks away and enters negotiations with AJ to unify, leaving Wilder to take the contact to arbitration - with no certainty which way the judge would rule. What if the judge annulled the contract? Then Fury has signed for a fight with AJ he apparently wanted to duck? Why would he put himself in a position where what happens next in his career is in the hands of an independent third party and a robust water-tight legal system if he was feigning interest in unifying? It's the worst planned 'duck' in boxing history.

Sometimes things are exactly what they seem. Wilder prevaricated over the third fight. Fury, sick of waiting, moved on to the best option with the biggest purse - fighting AJ - and then a judge put a spanner in the works.

 

FURY: 'Deontay will you take the contract to arbitration? I'm planning to pretend I want to fight AJ but I'll duck him at the last minute'.
WILDER: 'I have to pay for legal action and we don't know which way it will go? Why not just agree to the third fight?'
FURY: 'Dunno. I'm taking career advice from a boxing forum and no-one's covered that part'

 

It's pretty obvious that Fury is terrified of losing to AJ......not of AJ himself but the effect losing would have on his career/legacy. His career is built on him talking bull and 1 good performance.

Hearn's a snake but he's 100% in the right here.

 

You got it exactly right. Frustrating to see so many posts missing the bigger picture here. This was about more than just one fight. It's all Game of Thrones style strategic posturing intended to deal maximum damage to DAZN & Matchroom in the wider promotional/network wars. Haymon in particular (with no small amount of help from the WBC) has long since seemed more focussed on wrecking Matchroom than on making the most meaningful fights. He plays the long game whilst Eddie naively continues to risk his most marketable assets against dangerous opponents (Usyk's mandatory status figures strongly into the current chess game imo).

If Joshua were to beat Fury then Matchroom takes full control of the heavyweight division, and that would be the most disastrous thing that could happen for PBC and Top Rank. Sure if Fury were to win then the power goes elsewhere, but I suspect Arum is too wily to risk it. He's never been set on full domination so much as having his (very large) piece of the pie. I think he'd probably be happier seeing the belts splintered than Fury-Joshua occurring as a unification.

More importantly, as you say, the key is to cut the legs off of DAZN before they are able to establish themselves as a genuine market leader. Arum and especially Haymon will do all they can to avoid any true mega-fights occurring on that network. Not that they expect to destroy it (though that would be Fox and Showtime's hope), but if they can continue to make boxing seem more trouble than it's worth at least until DAZN is able to grab one of the big league sporting rights contracts then there is every likelihood that their interest in boxing and Matchroom will quickly dissipate.

Unfortunately you're probably right as well that Hearn will learn from this situation. The result will be even more political bull**** and even less cross-promotional fights getting made.

 

Warren sounds pretty pathetic in his latest interview, apparently Eddie's fault for making an announcement or two, god forbid a promoter actually promoting something.

 

From Fury's point of view, I don't for a moment think he doesn't want the Joshua fight but I do think he'd want a tune-up first (which Wilder effectively is). AJ fought six months ago while Tyson hasn't fought in what now, 19 months)? 22 by the time of the proposed date. You only need see Tyson's past comments on ring rust. It's a huge factor for him.

Problem is I doubt his fighting man pride allows him to state outright that he'd rather a tune-up than go straight into the most hyped fight there is (the real screw-up was Wilder not happening back in December around the same time as AJ-Pulev).

So I do think Fury was likely onboard with the gamesmanship here. Nevertheless I do think he ought to questioning his promoters motives to a large extent.

 

In which case he didn't want the AJ fight next. Wasn't he supposed to fight in December or something wasn't the rumour that they couldn't raise the money ?

 

I'm not interested in what Warren has to say but obviously Hearn DID keep making announcements.

A boxing promoter's job is to put on fights, not publicize non-fights or talk about himself and his busy week at work every two seconds.

 

Let's explore the simple facts about the fight that they were selling us.

Location - Saudi Arabia
Venue - New Purpose built stadium
Date - August 14th

Location - As I've stressed before Saudi hits 40 plus and is unbearable. Red Zone for the UK & Most of the western world so international fans are out.

Venue - Was yet to be built... Saudi have strict labour laws in the summer which state that labourers can not work or be forced to wok outside between noon and 3pm everyday if the weather goes to a certain temperature they are also not allowed to work.

Date - So we are to be expected to believe that AJ would go without Rob McCracken for his most of his camp?

Hearn knew about the arbitration and would never have just taken Bobs word for anything, especially if they were talking hundreds of millions of pounds. I refuse to believe he is that naive and nothing in his history alludes to this either.

I'm actually an AJ fan and really hope he smashes Fury to bits when they fight but this whole situation isn't just down to Furys team, there's more at play then what we are hearing.

Let's see if AJ fights Usyk now, if he doesn't that is Wilder, Fury and Usyk that they've failed to make fights with.

 

Yeah the "pandemic" screwed up the Wilder rematch completely. There was little enough interest in it as was, but without a crowd and without the potential big Vegas site fee that comes with, the fight would have been a loss-maker (especially as a co-promotion).

Tbh I over-simplified when I said the mistake was not making the Wilder fight in December. The real problem was:
1) There was no money in it, and Wilder/Haymon seemed uninterested at the time, likely for that reason as well as a couple others.
2) Determined to hold the division hostage game-theory style, Haymon blocked Arum/Fury from taking any other fight during that period. Screwed up Fury's preparation for AJ in the summer and subsequently impeded the unification via drawn out legal strategy.

 

This is the main thing that sticks out.
You get all this people on the internet saying "Hearn's telling the truth here ! This is all Arum/Team Fury's fault !" .... but the only way the story makes sense is if you believe Eddie Hearn is a naive, trusting, inncoent who was duped by Arum.

Hearn knew full well that the other side was Haymon and Finkel, so he knew Arum wasn't in dispute with amateurs.
Hearn knew at least as much as the rest of us, and probably a good deal more, and none of us were buying that the contract dispute arbitration was a complete non-issue. We knew it was lingering in the background. None of us would wholesale believe anyone who told us their legal issues were non-issues, no one of adult age can be that naive for long in this world.

Hearn knows how to spin a story to his advantage.
He loves to talk.
People seem to lap it up.

 

Well Wilder turned about half dozen offers to fight AJ. Fury 3 times now. All of which have been career high purses that they turned down to fight for less money.

Fury vs Wilder 3 - "Battle of the bottle jobs".

I can't sew why there would be an issue with arranging the AJ vs Usyk fight. Usyk is the mandatory and a MR fighter. Both have track record of taking on tough fights.

 

Eddie Hearn seems to have everyone duped, including most on this forum. He knew what was going on all along, and has people eating out of his snake oiled hand.

He creates a great narrative, I'll give him that.

Some people even believe Dereck Chisora is worth forking out 20 quid for, that's how good he is.

 

Never looked to be on after all the stalling and shenanigans.

I’d rather see Joshua/Wilder than Fury/Wilder at this stage to honest.

 

That can’t be true there must be loads of money in it as I’ve read on here a number of times about how big Fury is in America.