By Daily Sports on February 1, 2022

Frank Warren has hit back at rival promoter Eddie Hearn’s claim that Tyson Fury chose not to fight Oleksandr Usyk and insisted it was in fact Anthony Joshua’s step-aside demands which scuppered their deal.

From November to January, talks were ongoing behind the scenes with backers in the Middle East attempting to put together a mega deal for boxing’s undisputed heavyweight title fight.

Fury had been ordered to defend his WBC heavyweight title against Dillian Whyte next, while Anthony Joshua had triggered his contractual clause for a rematch with WBA, IBF and WBO champion Usyk.

However, interest from the Middle East resulted in negotiations to pay both Joshua and Whyte to step aside and allow Fury vs Usyk to happen first.

Ultimately though, this deal collapsed and Fury vs Whyte will now take place next with the Usyk vs Joshua rematch expected to follow shortly afterwards.

Hearn was first to give his explanation for what happened as he told talkSPORT.com’s Alex McCarthy: “The reality is Tyson Fury does not want to fight Oleksandr Usyk next for the undisputed championship, he wants to have an interim bout. And that’s what slowed things down…

“Fury has decided, ‘No actually, I don’t want to fight Usyk for the undisputed, actually I want to fight Dillian Whyte.’”

Warren has now responded by telling talkSPORT Fight Night: “It’s all irrelevant and I don’t particularly care what Eddie Hearn said.

“Eddie Hearn says lots of things and he’s part of the problem why these things don’t get over the line.

“A year ago when we were trying to put together a fight between Joshua and Tyson, every week he was saying, ‘It’s done, the contracts are being issued,’ despite the fact we all signed an agreement not to make any statements until it was done.”

Source TalkSport

Posted February 1, 2022

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