Yahoo News Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua agree on financial terms for two-fight deal in 2021
WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury said on Twitter on Wednesday that his management team has agreed on financial terms for a two-fight deal beginning in 2021 for a unification bout with IBF-WBA-WBO champion Anthony Joshua.
Fury still needs to fight former champion Deontay Wilder, but said in a video he shared on social media that his manager, Daniel Kinahan of MTK Global, reached a deal with Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn.
Sky Sports first reported the potential deal.
If the deal comes to fruition — and each boxer has a fight they must win first — it would be the first time in the four-belt era that all of the belts would be at stake in the same bout.
Fury has a defense scheduled against Wilder, while Joshua plans to fight Kubrat Pulev in November.
It’s official FURY VS JOSUAR AGREED FOR NEXT YEAR, I got to smash @bronzebomber first then I’ll annihilate @anthonyfjoshua #WEARESPARTANS
MASSIVE THANKS TO DANIEL KINNERHAN FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN.🙏🏻👍🏻 god bless pic.twitter.com/18FfVKfCax— TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) June 10, 2020
“Hello there!” a shirtless Fury said. “I just got off the phone with Daniel Kinahan and he just informed me that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed. Big shoutout Dan. He got this done. Two-fight deal, Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua next year. One problem: I’ve just got to smash Deontay Wilder’s face right in, in my next fight, and then we go right into the Joshua fight next year.
“So there we are. The Gypsy King versus A.J. is on for next year but there is a hurdle in the road called the Bronze Bomber aka The Knockout King. I will get onto him and knock him spark out. Then we’ll get onto the big fight.”
Hearn told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday that though financial terms with the fighters are agreed upon, there are other issues to resolve, including lining up a venue and a broadcast deal.
But he is optimistic that those can easily be overcome and that the Fury-Joshua fight will become a reality. It figures to be the most lucrative heavyweight fight in boxing history.
“The situation is that we have an agreement in place for how the deal structure for the fight should work over a two-fight deal,” Hearn said. “Obviously, there are still a number of obstacles to overcome in terms of the venue, in terms of a couple of broadcast details and of course both guys have a fight in between.
“But the good news is for the part of the deal which is notoriously more difficult, the financial elements, this is basically in principal agreed to. It’s good news, but it doesn’t mean that there’s a signed contract. It means that everybody is working in the right direction to make the fight.”
Top Rank president Todd duBoef, whose company co-promotes Fury with Frank Warren, said the goal is to get the Fury-Wilder fight done by the end of the year so that a Fury-Joshua fight could be held next year.
Fury knocked out Wilder in the seventh round in an impressive performance in their heavily hyped rematch on Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas. They had fought to a draw in a dramatic bout on Dec. 1, 2018, at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Fury is now 30-0-1 with 21 knockouts and is widely regarded as the No. 1 heavyweight in the world following his destruction of Wilder. Joshua is 23-1 with 21 KOs. He lost his belts on June 1, 2019, when he was shockingly knocked out by late replacement Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden in New York, but he regained them on Dec. 7 by winning a decision over Ruiz in the rematch in Saudi Arabia.
More from Yahoo Sports:
