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If Anthony Joshua is impressive Saturday night, his promoter believes British boxing fans will want to see the former heavyweight champion challenge Tyson Fury next.
Fury-Joshua would be an enormous event in England and is seemingly makeable now that promoters for Fury and Oleksandr Usyk have cut off negotiations for what would’ve been a full title unification fight April 29. England’s Joshua will meet American Jermaine Franklin at O2 Arena in London in Joshua’s first fight since Usyk beat him by split decision in their 12-round rematch August 20 at Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Hearn discussed the possibility of Fury-Joshua materializing after Joshua weighed in at a career-high 255 pounds Friday afternoon at a mall in London.
“I think that if AJ puts in a great performance [Saturday] night, with no mandatory for Tyson Fury, with no fight for Anthony Joshua, I feel like the British public are gonna absolutely insist on the Tyson Fury fight,” Hearn told DAZN broadcasters Barak Bess, Ade Oladipo and Akin Reyes. “But it’s all down to the performance tomorrow night. If he struggles a little bit and if he wins, he may say, ‘Give me another one in July, and then I’ll have a big fight.’ But he’s all about the big fights.”
Handicappers have made Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) at least a 10-1 favorite to defeat Franklin (21-1, 14 KOs) in a 12-round main event DAZN will stream worldwide. DAZN’s undercard coverage is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. BST (2 p.m. ET).
Hearn feels Fury would defend his WBC belt against Joshua next as long as the gigantic champion is paid what he wants.
“It’s all about the money for Tyson Fury,” Hearn said. “You know, he’s reached that point in his career he’s achieved what he needs to achieve. He’s just looking for [the most money].”
Fury and Joshua blamed each other when negotiations between Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing and Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions imploded last fall.
Morecambe’s Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) instead defeated Dereck Chisora (33-13, 23 KOs) by 10th-round technical knockout December 3 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The London-based Chisora, 39, was a huge underdog entering their third fight, which wasn’t remotely competitive.
Joshua was willing to accept a 60-40 split that favored Fury for that December 3 fight. Hearn hopes he and Queensberry Promotions’ CEO George Warren, who is Frank Warren’s son, can just pick up where they left off in negotiations if Joshua looks good against Franklin.
“As I said the other day,” Hearn said, “we’ve already got a deal in place from last time, which was well publicized, 60-40 deal. Remember, we’ve got the material points of that deal agreed. What we actually need to do is just pick that back up. What we need to do – one of my biggest problems is I’ve got a massive mouth. And like, you know, George Warren will say to me, ‘Can you not talk?’ … Everyone’s asking me the question. We do need both fighters just to remove themselves from it, and let Matchroom and Queensberry go to work on it, see if we can get into a position to approach the fighters and say, ‘Do you know what? We’ve actually got this in place.’ But it’s all completely irrelevant if we don’t win on Saturday night.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.