Hearn: Fury-Joshua is possible if Wilder steps aside

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The promoter continues trying to think of ways to make an undisputed heavyweight title fight a reality.

Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing has been banging on for a bit now about trying to find a way to make an undisputed heavyweight championship between his prize star Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury for weeks now, ever since Fury convincingly stopped Deontay Wilder on Feb. 22 to win the WBC belt, which pairs nicely with Fury’s LINEAL!!!!!!! claim.

Joshua (23-1, 21 KO), of course, has the other three major sanctioning body titles, the WBA, IBF, and WBO belts. And there’s no doubt it’s a massive fight wherever in the world you put it, be it Wembley Stadium or T-Mobile Arena.

But Fury (30-0-1, 21 KO) contractually owes Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KO) a third fight. The original idea to have it in July is off, but the new tentative date is Oct. 3 in Las Vegas.

As for AJ, he’s scheduled to face IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev on June 20, and Hearn is at this point admitting that’s likely to be postponed, hopefully not past July, but if it goes further than that, Hearn figures there’s at least a slight chance of making Fury-Joshua happen, though it would depend on both Pulev and Wilder stepping aside for the time being, and obviously getting a healthy amount of money to do so.

From Sky Sports:

“[I]if Joshua is only going to box once this year, he would very much like that to be against Tyson Fury. The situation is a little bit out of our hands in that, if Bob Arum and Al Haymon can talk and make Deontay Wilder wait a little bit, we would absolutely love to go into that fight [with Fury] next.”

Hearn knows this is a longshot, but he believes the current shutdown of boxing, with no certainty of when the sport will return, could make a lot of unusual things happen, and make fighters go into big fights earlier than they might have otherwise. He admits that if Wilder won’t step aside, “there’s no conversation to be had,” but the unique situation everyone is in could change some minds from what they’d normally do.

Of course, Wilder and Pulev are going to want their contractually obligated paydays as much as anyone else, and a step-aside fee wouldn’t match what they’re going to make to actually fight, so it’s certainly difficult to imagine this coming off. But Hearn is determined to find a way, if there is one, and considering Fury-Joshua really is the fight to make, it’s hard to blame him for that.