Eddie Hearn has suggested conversations are going well with every fighter but Tyson Fury for the proposed four-man heavyweight tournament in December.
Fury is expected to face fellow heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in a monumental event that would be headlined by Anthony Joshua vs Deontay Wilder. The showdowns are targeted for Saudi Arabia and Matchroom Boxing boss Hearn recently met with the Chairman of Skills Challenge Entertainment, Prince Khaled, in the Middle East to discuss the event.
Hearn insisted the negotiations were positive, but Fury's name was notably absent when discussing the event. "Talks were good, I think from the Usyk and Wilder conversations have gone very well, for us we are in. We need to finalise terms but we just said to Prince Khaled that's the fight we want," Hearn said.
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"Having worked with them before, we know that we can get a deal done and that's what we are looking to do this and next week. We've got a great relationship with Prince Khaled and Skills Challenge. We're the only one that's done the two big boxing events out there with Joshua vs Ruiz and Joshua vs Usyk. What you've seen... they want to make that night. They want to do Joshua vs Wilder and Fury vs Usyk."
Hearn wants Joshua to have a fight in August before possibly facing Wilder at the end of the year. 'AJ' was recently advised to get more experience with new coach Derrick James having only worked together for one fight, something Hearn thinks both Joshua and James want to do as well.
Usyk's promoter Alex Krassyuk has backed up Hearn's comments about Fury by naming him as the stumbling block in negotiations for the tournament. Krassyuk stated that both Joshua and Wilder are easy to negotiate with but Fury, who has dismissed talks of the four-man tournament, is hard to deal with because of his "complex personality".
"Joshua is not a very complicated person to deal with. Deontay Wilder and Shelley Finkel are very reasonable people. Oleksandr Usyk and his team are known to be the easiest people to deal with in the world of boxing," Krassyuk told BT Sport Boxing. "So there’s only one thing still pending and it’s a complex personality who goes back and forth, playing his games to try and squeeze as much money as possible. That was the reason why Usyk called him greedy belly!”
