Frank Warren admits there is nothing left to discuss as it relates to Anthony Joshua facing his company’s biggest client – Tyson Fury.
It does not mean that the Hall of Fame promoter is not interested in doing business of any kind with the former two-time unified heavyweight titlist.
Boxing attempt to broker a deal for a long-desired Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua all-UK heavyweight showdown. Talks were promising at first but eventually came to a grinding halt, with both parties now headed in separate directions.
“It’s off the table,” Warren said in an interview with IFL TV’s Umar Ahmed. “If you look at it, AJ has to get himself in the mandatory position. To get into the mandatory position, he gets 20 percent of the purse bid, whereas he would have gotten 40 percent.”
“What it’s all about, Tyson has only been out for one fight a year (since 2020),” noted Warren. “We’re just trying to get him out. We expected the fight in December would be [unified WBA ‘Super’/IBF/WBO champ Oleksandr] Usyk. But Usyk wasn’t available. Now it looks like we hope for some time in February. Tyson wants to fight some time before then. He wanted to fight in December and we wanted to get him out. So, we’re getting him out.”
Next steps for Watford’s Joshua (24-3, 22KOs) remain unclear at the moment, other than Matchroom hoping to get the 2012 Olympic Gold medalist and former two-time unified titlist back in the ring before year’s end. Joshua is coming off a second straight defeat to Usyk, the latter in a strangely scored split decision in favor of the Ukrainian southpaw who clearly deserved the win in their August 20 title fight in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“If [Joshua] wants to fight, there’s two great fights there with Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois,” notes Warren. “Both hold very significant positions in their respective organizations. They’re both mandatories. One is the interim champion, that’s Joe Joyce. Daniel is the WBA ‘Regular’ champion. There’s another way back if he wants to talk about it.”
