Tyson Fury has teased an imminent announcement of his fight with Anthony Joshua. Fury and Joshua have been on a collision course for a decade and signed to fight each other earlier this year but no date or venue has been announced.
Fury's Social Media Hint
Fury took to social media to suggest an announcement is coming. "Morning guys," he said. "I'm just in the old gym doing a bit. [I'm going to] do about 45 minutes on the cross trainer, give me legs a rest from the running.
"Everything is going well. I got some big news going to be dropped very, very soon. All is good in the hood, big fight on the horizon, it's the one you've all been waiting for. [It's] about to be announced imminently, so stay tuned. Toodle pip!"
Venue Dispute
Joshua wants the fight to be held in the UK but broadcaster Netflix - and the fight's Saudi backers - want it to be held in New York. Last week, Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn insisted there would be no fight if a deal could not be agreed.
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.'"
He added: "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.'"
Ultimatum
Hearn insisted: "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."
