Via Charles Brun: Bob Arum says he’s not interested in step-by-step support deals for Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte to avoid their respective fights against Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.
Arum already knew that Fury would beat Whyte, and Usyk would beat Joshua again, leaving him with the headache of putting the deals aside.
The end result will be Fury battling Usyk for the undisputed championship in the second half of 2022, and Arum will get the fight he wants.
Arum says he just wants to see these two matches play out, and then the winners meet the following year.
According to Eddie Hearn, Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) will face IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) in a rematch next March in the UK, maybe at the Millennium Stadium in London.
As for WBC interim champion Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), he and WBC champ Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) are pegged at the end of February in the UK, but that’s will depend on whether the split is agreed or not.
Hearn said Thursday that the Whyte side will want a 55/45 split to allow for a fight with Fury. Team Fury supporters have made it clear that they prefer an 80-20 split.
Arum said to forget the next step
“We’re dealing with the pros and Todd duBoef is talking to the Dillian Whyte folks, and hopefully we can put that fight together,” Bob Arum told. Social boxing in the fight between Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte.
“What difference does it make now? Joshua could step aside. Whyte had to step aside,” Arum said when asked about the possibility of Anthony Joshua stepping aside to allow Fury to face Oleksandr Usyk next.
“Forget these steps. Let Joshua fight Usyk again. He has a contract to do it and let Dillian Whyte fight Tyson Fury. Whoever wins those two matches fights for all the belts. I mean, there’s only a few months left to get it all sorted out.
“Let’s stop doing what’s really hard to get the steps and all that. It gets complicated and that’s a way of making it complicated,” said Arum.
One reason why Arum is not interested in messing with putting a deal aside for Joshua is that it would involve another deal that needs to be made with Whyte to get him out of the way.
With the World Boxing Council ordering Fury to take on the next Whyte, it further complicates what needs to be done to clear the way for a Fury-Usyk fight.
The second likely reason Arum wasn’t interested in putting deals aside was that he already knew the outcome of the two battles.
Arum is certain that Fury will beat Whyte, while Usyk will do the job on Joshua a second time, making him regret his decision to rematch.
The split between Fury and Whyte needs to be resolved
“It is great news for Dillian Whyte. Of course, there’s still the split situation to work out,” Eddie Hearn told iFL TV on WBC ordering this week’s Fury vs Whyte bout.
“I told [WBC president] Mauricio [Sulaiman] on Saturday in Vegas that it’s hard to negotiate a fight when you really don’t know what the split bid is.
“So we’ll see how that develops during the arbitration and discussions with the WBC,” Hearn said. “But you have a situation here where if you have a side [Matchroom Boxing] If one side thinks the split should be 55/45 and the other side thinks the split should be 80/20, you won’t reach an agreement.
“So that needs to be determined before we can even look at the transactions, really, I think. Obviously, there’s a pocketbook bid scenario, but we’d be happy to do a deal if those are the right terms for Dillian Whyte.
“We will be fierce, and we want to push that fight. So we’ll talk to our partners to figure out what kind of bid we’ll make for that fight. Dillian will weigh his options and decide on the path down.
“Again, it’s very difficult to negotiate when you don’t know what the division is. So I don’t see an agreement being reached until people know what part of that fight is like,” Hearn said of the Fury vs Whyte fight, Hearn said.
If Hearn and Whyte get too greedy and insist on an unrealistic 55-45 split, Fury and his supporters in the Top Rated will likely walk away.
In doing so, the WBC sling will be thrown aboard the ship, treated as an unnecessary ballast for a ship that is reducing its load by dumping unless the weight.
While Hearn may momentarily celebrate Fury nullifying his WBC, he soon realizes it’s an empty win for Whyte as he won’t be getting a heavy cash fight with Gyspy King.
Instead, Whyte will likely be ordered to face the top 10 contender in the WBC rankings, which in this case would be #1 Deontay Wilder or #2 Andy Ruiz Jr. Whyte.
If the WBC elevates Whyte to the new champion, as they did to Devin Haney through the email process, he will be considered a champion on paper and likely to be overlooked by Fury, Anthony Joshua and Usyk.
Possible Millennium Stadium for Joshua vs. Usyk II
“If it’s in the UK and it’s going to be in March, it’s going to be a stadium that makes sense,” Hearn said of London’s Millennium Stadium as a potential venue for the Joshua bout. and Usyk in March.
“Yes, and that hasn’t changed from his original plan and his original preferences,” Hearn said of stepping aside for Joshua off the table. “All that aside is the ongoing planning without Anthony Joshua until they get to the point where Anthony Joshua is needed.
“Obviously, what he wants to do is a rematch with Oleksandr Usyk, and with news of Dillian Whyte now, it’s almost certain that the fight will come maybe a month or so after Whyte. against Fury.
Joshua will likely never consider stepping aside because he wants to rematch Usyk as quickly as possible to try and redeem himself, as he did in 2019 after losing to Andy Ruiz Jr. at the beginning of that year.
AJ may discover to Usyk that he is a completely different ball of wax. Joshua wouldn’t be able to count on Usyk eating his way to obesity, skipping workouts and partying like it was his last day on earth.
Usyk won’t be a sluggard. He will work hard and he won’t be shocked if Joshua chooses to use his size and strength to overpower him. The fact that Joshua will try to crush Usyk is almost approved.
If Joshua tries something other than that, it will be a surprise for Usyk, so he should be ready for his game plan next March.
It’s no surprise that Hearn wants to ensure that Joshua has a home-field advantage for the Usyk rematch as he will need every help he can get from his loyal boxing fans.
If Joshua loses the rematch, the gravy train could stop for a long time. Losing a few times is forgivable, but when a boxer starts piling up losses like they’re out of shape, it’s time for Joshua fans to drop the ship.
Usyk wants the rematch with Joshua to take place in his native Ukraine. He feels that he deserves the match at home as he won their previous match in AJ’s home country on September 25 at the Hotspurs Stadium in London, England.
Hearn forgot he started the $40 million AJ move aside
“No, sometimes I see some of this stuff, and I just say, ‘It’s going to be nice,’ but that’s not the number that was discussed,” Hearn said when asked if Joshua was asking for 40 million. dollars for stepping aside .
“I have absolutely no idea,Hearn said when asked where Joshua wants the $40 million to come from. “The crazy thing is everyone runs with it and everyone believes in it. Sometimes it’s better to just ask me.
“I cannot give you the exact facts in certain situations, but at least I will tell you which are fillings and which are not,” Hearn said, forgetting that HE had stated it himself. recently that Joshua would need $40 million as a possible step aside.
Hearn seems to have forgotten that HE started the conversation about Joshua needing to put $40 million aside when he told an interviewer from Boxing King Media this:
“Seven numbers? One million,” Hearn said when asked if Joshua would be offered seven characters for stepping aside. “If you want to get him [Joshua] not fighting Oleksandr Usyk, you better that time around forty,” which means Joshua would theoretically need $40 million for him to step aside.
