Eddie Hearn has revealed that Tyson Fury sent contracts to multiple fighters including Derek Chisora while Matchroom and Queensbury negotiated the Anthony Joshua fight. The British promoter has accused Fury of pulling the plug on the fight and believes it is now dead in the water.
On Monday, Hearn declared that the fight is off after not hearing back from Frank Warren’s son George who has been leading negotiations for Fury’s camp. The pair had been going back and forth over a renewed contract with Hearn raising concerns about several undisclosed points in the original paperwork.
But according to Hearn, George stopped responding after Fury’s announcement that he would be fighting Mahmoud Charr.
“At the weekend, or Friday, Derek Chisora received a contract for the Tyson Fury fight,” Hearn said in a video posted on the Matchroom Boxing YouTube channel. “So have other fighters, so in our mind, he’s not fighting Anthony Joshua.
Joshua is now expected to face a top-15 fighter at the back end of the year. Otto Wallin and Zhang Zhilei have been discussed as possible future opponents and have both expressed interest in taking the fight.
Wallin told OLBG: “I think it makes a lot of sense for me and Joshua to fight each other. People in the UK know me for giving Fury one of his toughest fights in his career and I get a lot of support from over there. I’m always training and trying to get better and I can’t wait to go over to the UK and earn my right for another shot at Fury by beating Anthony Joshua.”
While Zhang said, per FightMag: “I would love to fight AJ in China because of our amateur backgrounds.The venue is there, the Bird’s Nest holds 100,000, so we have it all. Beijing and Shanghai are the biggest cities, very economically developed and boxing in China is growing. The sports fans there like boxing, they like AJ, so if we can make it happen it would be huge for boxing.”