The world heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, has moved a step closer, says Eddie Hearn
The world heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, has moved a step closer with Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, saying that a two-fight deal between the two heavyweight stars has been signed.
The winner of this all-British bout would go on to become the undisputed heavyweight champion on the world.
The locations and dates are yet to have been confirmed. Anthony Joshua, aged 31, holds the WBO, WBA and IBF belts, while Tyson Fury, aged 32, currently holds the WBC title.
“All parties have now put pen to paper and we will be working hard over the next few weeks to confirm the site and date for the biggest fight in boxing,” Eddie Hearn said to Sky Sports on Monday.
This comes after Sonny Bill Williams has announced his retirement from professional rugby, with the dual-code New Zealand international also suggesting he may return to boxing. The 35-year-old appears set to focus on a return to boxing, having won all seven of his professional heavyweight boxing bouts between 2009 and 2015.
Fury had said on Friday that he had stopped his training because a fight deal was “nowhere near” being finalised with Joshua’s team.
Hearn said to ESPN on Monday that they are aiming to have a venue “confirmed in the next month” and that his team have already received offers from “eight or nine sites” from across “multiple countries in the Middle East, Asia, eastern Europe and America”.
The fight between Joshua and Fury would see all four belts contested in a heavyweight bout for the first time in the history if the sport.
The last undisputed heavyweight champion of the world was the British boxer Lennox Lewis, who held the titlefrom the years of 1999 to 2000, but this was before a boxer had to also be holding the WBO belt to now be considered the undisputed heavyweight champion.
Joshua so far has a record of 24 wins and one defeat from his 25 professional boxing matches. He lost his three heavyweight world titles in a shock defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr back in June of 2019 before he then regained them in a rematch with Ruiz Jr in December of the same year.
He defended them by knocking out the mandatory title challenger Kubrat Pulev, in a bout that took place in the Wembley Arena in December.
This comes after leading head injury and concussions expert Dr Willie Stewart has said that the new head injury substitute rules in football are a “shambles”. Football’s lawmakers approved a trial for the new head injury measures in December, which has now been adopted in the Premier League, as well as the FA Cup.
Tyson Fury is unbeaten within his 31 professional fights, having survived two knockdowns to draw with the American boxer Deontay Wilder back in 2018 before he them took the WBC title by winning a rematch with the “Bronze Bomber” in February of 2020, which is the last time that Fury competed.
He won the WBA, IBF and WBO belts after he defeated Wladimir Klitschko back in 2015 before nearly three years out of the boxing world, during which he overcame a bout of depression and had also accepted a backdated two-year UK Anti-Doping ban.
