The world of Boxing was thrown for a loop this week when Tyson Fury tweeted a call-out video to recently defeated former heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua, for a fight that he has dubbed as ‘The Battle of Britain’. While this is not the first time that talk of a fight between the two English heavyweights has gone on, negotiations appear to be moving quite quickly. Joshua responded to Fury’s tweet confirming his desire for the fight and for Fury to get in contact with his management team. Far too often we see this in the world of combat social media. Arguments and spats often look like they will develop into fights yet the actual bout never materialises.
Yea calm. I don’t do the online discussions just for clout, so if your really about it shout @258mgt. I’ll be ready in December. Khalas https://t.co/kKCWdrlmol
— Anthony Joshua (@anthonyjoshua) September 5, 2022
Indeed Eddie Hearn initially stated that he did not believe that Fury was genuinely interested in the fight and a look at the comments of fans across Youtube and Twitter show that many felt Fury was calling out AJ just to offer him stupidly low terms which (when refused) he would use to lower the stock of Joshua even further and gain more momentum to his own name with Joshua being ‘afraid’ to fight him.
However, it appears that Fury is serious about making the fight happen, with Eddie Hearn revealing that he has been in talks with members of Fury’s management team as well as respected journalists such as Michael Benson reporting that Frank Warren has stated that they will be sending an official offer to Anthony Joshua’s camp regarding a fight in November. Fury himself has recently posted another tweet where he reveals that the split offered to Joshua was not 80%-20%, 75%-25% or even 70%-30% as some suggested he may do.
Instead, it is apparently set at 60%-40% which many would consider a fair figure considering that AJ is coming off of back-to-back losses with Fury also being the current WBC and Lineal Heavyweight champion of the world. Time remains to be seen whether this matchup will materialise or if it will fall through as it has done before, yet if negotiations continue at their current pace we may get an answer sooner rather than later.