Boxing fans are continuing to debate who is to blame for Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua 's fight collapsing.
Heavyweight champion Fury announced plans to end his retirement by offering Joshua a fight on December 3 at Cardiff's Principality Stadium. 'AJ' accepted the terms but missed Fury's proposed deadline to sign a contract and the fight was seemingly off. Fury was convinced by his promoters to give Joshua more time, but has since offered fights to Derek Chisora and Manuel Charr after being frustrated with negotiations taking too long.
George Warren, who is Fury's chief negotiator for the fight, and Matchroom Boxing boss Hearn have both since expressed their doubts about the fight taking place. Boxing fans have since weighed in on the fight seemingly being cancelled, with some fans blaming Joshua's team and others accusing Fury of never being serious about the fight.
Who do you think is to blame for talks between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua collapsing? Let us know in the comments section below
"AJ’s team playing games this whole time. They had the contract for weeks and were still talking up to last week about commercial deals and having the final say. You’re the B-side. Fury can have a warm-up December and undisputed next year. AJ is finished now, he has no belts," one user wrote. "Hearn is the master salesman, convincing AJ it’s not the right time, that they don’t need it, that the deals not right. All so he can milk a 3 fight run on DAZN against nobodies. AJ signed into a lifetime deal as well," another added.
"When Fury keeps giving deadlines on social media then saying it’s off and Charr and Chisora receive contracts whilst negotiations are ongoing, can’t blame Hearn about not being ambitious to be honest," a third user commented. "Fury told everyone it was off on multiple occasions before meetings to clarify things could even take place. He was causing problems and confusion from the get go. You can’t have proper discussions when your client obviously is thinking about other fights," a fourth wrote.
Hearn told talkSPORT of the fight talks collapsing: "Huge fights like this don’t get made in two weeks. That’s the reality, when two guys have huge commercial deals with different broadcasters, it takes time. We’ve apparently missed two deadlines now that are the final deadlines, so I don’t know. I’ve not spoken to Queensberry since Thursday of last week."
Warren claimed Matchroom's poor communication was the reason for the fight falling apart, stating: “We made quite extensive requests over to their side, chasing them down to try and engage with us in a quicker fashion last week. It fell down because quite frankly we got to a point with them where communication coming back from them and the substance of that communication was lacking."
