Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on DAZN.com.
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Tyson Fury’s co-promoter Bob Arum is “95 percent” sure that his fighter and Anthony Joshua will, within a few weeks, reach a final agreement to fight one another.
Fury and Joshua are expected to fight at least once in 2021, with June suggested as a possible date for a first bout. Financial terms have already been agreed in principle, with a 50-50 split in revenues expected. One obstacle is Oleksandr Usyk’s demands to step aside from his WBO mandatory fight.
Arum spoke with Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, a few hours after Joshua’s victory over IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev and discussions have continued into the new year.
One of the details yet to be settled is a venue. It is unlikely that the first fight will take place in the United Kingdom because of coronavirus-related restrictions on attendance for sporting events.
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Speaking to Sky Sports, Arum said: “I don’t want to make a deadline, but I just can report that everything so far has been going splendidly, and we hope to have a signed document within the next couple of weeks.
“That might not provide for a site, because again, we can have a document that the fighters would have signed, and everything, and then have a mutual agreement clause of the site.
“We’re all on the same page, as far as I can see. I’m 95 percent confident the fight happens, and I’m 100 percent confident that my guy wins, and wins by knockout.”
Venues in China, Singapore, the Middle East and the United States have been suggested as potential sites for the fight.
“I don’t want to say too much, other than we’re going well,” Hearn said. “We’re now papering the fight, in terms of the contracts, a period of the fight, and looking out now in the next stages to go to the different various sites that have made offers and discuss the fight and the date with them.
“All I want to tell you really is we’re on track, and I don’t see anything derailing it. We’re talking to Saudi Arabia, we’re talking to Qatar, we’re talking to Dubai, we’re talking to Singapore, we’re talking to China, we’re talking to America.
“We all know everybody would like this fight in the U.K. Can we hand-on-heart say that in May, we can have 100,000 people in Wembley? I think very unlikely.”
Arum also revealed that Hearn is keen for his Matchroom fighters to face their Top Rank rivals on the same bill.