Tyson Fury has branded his new December 3 opponent Mahmoud Charr "a man who wants to fight" after cancelling his bout with Anthony Joshua.
The world heavyweight champion placed a seemingly random deadline of yesterday evening for Joshua to put pen to paper on a contract for the pair to meet in December, and his rival couldn't make the deal happen in time. Now, it appears that Fury will face Charr instead at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff in a voluntary title defence before facing Oleksandr Usyk next year.
Former WBA 'regular' champion Charr has been angling for a fight with Fury over the past few months, and has remained a constant figure throughout the last few weeks of negotiations for the Joshua bout. Ultimately, he was chosen as the opponent for December 3, which will be Fury's second bout on British soil this year after a four-year absence.
In an Instagram story last night after confirming that he was finished with the Joshua negotiations, Fury wrote: "Looking forward to fighting a man who wants to fight and has fire and desire. Mahmoud Charr fought some of the best fighters and now stepping up again! Get in there, Charr."
Fury's promoter Frank Warren last night insisted that the Joshua negotiations weren't completely dead, and told TalkSPORT that the two sides had engaged in a "good meeting" earlier that day. But Fury took to social media to declare differently and vow never to fight his long-time British rival.
"Well guys, it's official. D-Day has come and gone, it's gone past 5'o'clock Monday and no contract has been signed," Fury said. "It's officially over for Joshua, he's now out in the cold with the wolf pack. Forget about it. Idiot, coward, s***house, bodybuilder. Always knew you didn't have the minerals to fight the Gyspy King. Regardless of what you say now, I don't really care. Good luck with your career and your life, end of."
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It was a stark contrast to what Warren told talkSPORT later that day, when he explained: “We’re trying to get it done, we’re working very hard to get it over the line. If everyone agreed everything, it would be a huge undertaking, but we could do it that way. Tyson has told me what he wants. They’ve had the contract for ten days and he’s lost patience with it.
"We’re trying to make it work and we had a good meeting today so we’ll see what happens. We’re waiting for it [the contract] to come back, it’s not come back, the contract, and we’re waiting for it to come back. We’ve agreed certain things, we’re waiting for it to come back and we’ve been waiting for ten days, so I’ve got no idea. There’s nothing as far as we’re concerned.
"We thought we’d got it over the line, more or less. They’ve got the contract, they’ve got to come back to us now. There’s been a lot of conversations, but they’ve not come back. We’re not that far away from December 3. We’ve got to get it up on sale. The venue’s booked but there’s a lot of organisation involved."
