Tyson Fury's promoter Frank Warren has conceded his fighter's clash with Anthony Joshua will be postponed if no deal is reached on a venue.
Fury and Joshua signed contracts earlier this year to meet in November; but Joshua's deal included a clause that the showdown must take place in the UK. The fight was originally pencilled in for Wembley but Netflix, who are streaming the event, and the Saudi backers, want it to be held in New York.
Hearn and Joshua resist New York move
Hearn and Joshua are resisting attempts to convince them to relent and agree to the fight being staged at Madison Square Garden. Hearn said earlier this week that if no agreement can be reached, the fight would have to be cancelled. And Warren has admitted he is powerless to prevent that happening.
Warren's warning
“Tyson Fury has his agreement, which states something different,” he told Box Nation. “The fight will happen. I’ve heard what Eddie has said. They’re either going to agree to it or not. If they don’t agree to it then the fight won’t happen.
“Tyson signed for the fight back in January; the fight was supposed to happen in September. They were supposed to have a warm-up fight in September; unfortunately there was that terrible, tragic accident that ‘AJ’ was in where he lost two of his best friends, and that held everything up, but the fight I understand, will be November, and the venue will be announced in due course.”
Hearn's ultimatum
Earlier this week, Hearn told The Punch Podcast: “Everybody wants to do the fight in New York, apart from Anthony Joshua and me. We're under a huge amount of pressure, and we're being told by Turki Alshikh and those guys - Netflix particularly - 'Look, we really want to do the fight in the US.' It's almost not a 'please Eddie,' but like, 'We're partners. We're paying a lot of money. Come on, you have to understand that we need to put the fight where we feel is commercially the best place.'
“I don't agree with their arguments, but I'm not the one paying the money. However, we wouldn't have signed the contract if the fight was in America, so we have to have a discussion around that. Then you've got Nick Khan phoning me up from TKO and Zuffa, saying, 'Come on, can we be involved?' And I'm like, 'What? Why? Why would I let you be involved?' 'Well, we think we can make the fight bigger,' and blah, blah, blah.
“Okay, if you tell me some reasons why I should let you be involved... Are you going to let me be involved in the next Conor McGregor fight in the UFC? No, of course not. So what? But I'm also not stubborn enough to just say no; I'll listen. The other day, though, they wrote to us and said, 'Just to let you know, we'd like to announce the fight for New York.' I said, 'No. You can't.'
“By the way, there might even be a situation where they go ahead and announce it anyway, and you'll probably see me come out quite quickly and say, 'No fight.' Because I promise you, if they announce that fight without an agreement in place to change the venue, there will be no fight, and we ain't bluffing.
“We feel really strongly that this fight should be in the UK. I've also said many times that I want it to work for everybody. Turki is spending a lot of money on this fight, if you really feel that commercially you're going to be so much better off doing it in America.”
