Eddie Hearn has turned down Tyson Fury's demand to have Anthony Joshua sign up for their December 3 fight today, claiming the deal almost certainly can't be done in that time frame.
The promoter has been working tirelessly alongside Frank Warren's Queensberry Promotions, through his son George, even after Fury declared that the deal was off the table on Monday. But given Joshua's commitment to a number of major brands and broadcasters, the contract is taking time to iron out with lawyers and won't be ready today.
Hearn was at a media day for Conor Benn's upcoming meeting with Chris Eubank Jr today (Thursday), but was peppered with questions about talks between Fury and Joshua. And he has explained that Fury's public demands do not necessarily signal ironclad movements in the negotiations.
"It's baffling really," Hearn told Behind The Gloves. "I don't want to say anything that's going to negatively impact, but I have to say one of the great things about this situation is, you know us and Queensberry don't talk really. All the conversations, all the negotiations have been great.
" Tyson Fury will tell you the bits that you want to hear, so let me tell you a few things that you need to know. Firstly, when we agreed terms for this fight, it took us over a week to receive a contract back from Queensberry. I don't even mind that, I'm not moaning about that because it's a very complex fight, and one of the biggest fights in the world.
"When we received that contract, it was all over the place - nowhere near being any kind of situation that we could be close to signing. We have not had that contract for 14 days like he said. Secondly, over the next week we all worked tirelessly, we had a number of calls, meetings, zoom calls to try and get the contract in some kind of shape.
"On Monday just gone, we sent Queensberry our final draft of the contract with our final comments. He then came out the same day and said 'fight's off, you're a p****, I'm not taking this fight I'm moving on. Okay, George [Warren] sort of said 'let me talk to him' and then we got to where we are.
"Yesterday, we receive back Queensberry's comments on our final comments, which are being reviewed at the moment. This is two days after him saying the fight's off, it's not happening, we carried on and then he pops up today and says 'sign a contract today'.
"When we send a final draft that's ready to sign and we get a load of comments back, it's not ready to sign, it has to be reviewed from there. We're all willing to go through the process to get this fight signed, you have to remember that whilst AJ is the challenger, we're accepting the smaller split, but he's not just a regular opponent."
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However, he admitted that there is a slight possibility that the deal is done within the next 24-48 hours, but it would involved the unlikely scenario of Queensberry succumbing to all of their new contractual notes. The more likely outcome is that the negotiation rumbles on for another few days, leaving Hearn to claim that he isn't confident a fight will be made.
Asked if he feels confident that the fight will happen, Hearn admitted: "Not really, because I don't know what to believe. You can't come out and say 'the fight is off, it's off the table, you're a p****, blah blah blah, whatever'. From that moment you don't down talks, we carry on but not at the same pace.
"Then yesterday we receive the comments back from our draft on Monday and that has to go to our lawyers, it's got to go to AJ's lawyers and we have to go through that, which we do today. But it's not going to get signed today and I don't want to call Fury's bluff and say 'walk away then,' because he said he was doing that on Monday.
"If you want to walk away, just walk away from the fight. You know what? It becomes tedious to people and I'm here for the Conor Benn media day and I know I'm going to get questions about it but people get bored. If you look at Tyson Fury's post and the comments, half of it is 'AJ you dosser, sign the contract' and the other half is 'this is f***ing boring'.
"Just work away to get it done and trust your team to get it done and your lawyers. Hopefully they do. This whole 'I've pulled out of the fight, I'm back in the fight, you've got a day,' it really doesn't help. He's not stupid and part of me wonders why he's doing this, especially when they're offering Derek Chisora a fight."
