Editor’s note: This article was originally published on DAZN.com.
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It appears a title-unification fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua this spring or early summer is on the cusp of becoming official.
Eddie Hearn, who promotes Joshua, has revealed that his fighter and fellow titleholder Fury could be putting pen to paper as early as the first half of February.
That would allow the focus to shift to other important aspects of their eagerly-anticipated showdown, such as the exact date and venue.
“I hope that we can finalize contracts in the next two weeks,” Hearn told iFL TV. “And then the plan from there is to go out and start discussing with the various sites that have approached to stage this fight.
“What we wanna do is make sure we’ve got a deal papered to move forwards and start having these conversations, and then lock in the venue and the date. There isn’t a lot to be sorted. We’re in a good place.
“I believe we’ll have these contracts finalized in the next couple of weeks. I believe this fight will take place in June.”
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This process is likely to mean that there will be two official announcements from Hearn and Fury’s promoters, Bob Arum and Frank Warren.
One will be that the contracts are signed. The other will be to announce the official date and location, once that part has also been finalized.
The promoters wanted to have the Brits fight on home soil but it will be staged overseas because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“We wanna make sure we have the deal in place,” Hearn said. “And that will be the route map for this fight, to hopefully make an announcement in the next couple of weeks to say, ‘This fight is signed and done.’
“Let’s make one thing clear: This is the biggest fight in the history of British boxing. This may be the biggest heavyweight fight of all time. This is the undisputed heavyweight world championship.
“Once we’ve done that, we’ll say, ‘The fight is on, start getting very, very excited and now we’ll be going out and finalizing the venue.’ Because what we don’t want to do is [not answer] all these questions that keep coming.
“I wanna give you the news, I wanna tell you that this fight’s on and now we’re gonna be giving you a date. It’ll be, ‘It’s planned for June, and we’ll be giving you the site and the [specific] date in the very near future.’
“That’s the news I hope to be able to give you in the next couple of weeks.”