Eddie Hearn admitted he was “gutted” the Tyson Fury vs Anthony fight has been thrown off track, when an arbitrator ruled that Fury must battle Deontay Wilder next.
Speaking to Ak and Barak on their DAZN Boxing Show, the Matchroom promoter said he felt like a “one-man army” while trying to get the super-fight off the runway.
“I can’t control the other side,” he noted.
Maybe he was a bit naive, Hearn stated, to believe people who told him that the pending arbitration wouldn’t affect Fury-Joshua plans. When he spoke to Top Rank’s Bob Arum on the phone right after the arbitration news dropped, he told Arum it made sense to stay on the road to make Fury-AJ.
“The whole thing absolutely stinks,” Hearn said, making clear he thinks this was the plan for Top Rank all along.
He isn’t sure that kicking the can down the road and making Fury-Joshua in December is the right move, or will occur. And it’s clear Hearn has been mulling things since the arbitration bomb dropped on May 18, and he’s gotten more salty in that time frame.
Hearn thinks there’s not been a real effort made to put off Wilder with a “step aside” fee. He speculated as to why, what sort of deals behind the scenes may have affected the whole matter. Hearn finds it curious that Fury isn’t kicking up dust, and doesn’t appear to be at all bummed that plans to battle AJ went into the gutter.
“AJ feels that the entire team never wanted the fight and they used his name for clout,” said Hearn.
