Eddie Hearn: Only Me & Anthony Joshua Tried Making Tyson Fury Fight Happen

Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn believes that only himself and Anthony Joshua truly wanted to make the Tyson Fury fight happen.

Hearn hasn’t hidden his frustration over the undisputed heavyweight title fight between Joshua and Fury falling apart. It appeared to be a lock for August 14 in Saudi Arabia. Things took a turn when former WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder won an arbitration. As a result, he’s owed a trilogy bout with Fury by September 15. That matchup is scheduled for July 24 in Las Vegas.

Hearn had a sitdown with iFL TV and he ranted about Top Rank’s handling of the situation (h/t Bad Left Hook).

“No one tried one inch to ever make this fight apart from me and AJ. Frank Warren and Bob Arum, I’ve not heard of one meeting, one approach, one attempt that they made to try to get a site fee or try to make this fight. Now is that because they knew they were never gonna take it, or is that because they thought they couldn’t do it, or is ‘cause just leave it to me?…they didn’t want me to make this fight, they didn’t want me to succeed in this fight.

“Now we sit at a place where I don’t really know what to believe to be honest with you. ‘Were you naive to believe what Top Rank told you?’ Maybe, but it’s a confidential arbitration, I can’t look into the case. What I can tell you is the whole team told us that arbitration will not get in the way of this fight. … At what point did Bob or Frank have one positive thing to say about this fight? So then you look at it and you say they just wanted to use me, probably — and Matchroom — as a scapegoat all along.

“Bob Arum is aware of the work that’s gone in to make this fight. And to just call up and say ‘Fuck, can’t believe it. It’s preposterous. We’re just gonna go ahead with the fight so cheers mate, thanks for everything, we’ll catch up soon.’ No.”