Fury Doubts Joshua Fight While Hearn Points to Signed Contracts

“I don’t necessarily believe a lot of things he says, but I would be shocked if Fury wasn’t here on Saturday because they’re both signed,” Hearn told Ring Magazine. “It’s signed. Hopefully Fury gets through [Mariusz] Wach on Saturday night, gets here, and let’s get him face to face. They’ve never been face to face before.”

“‘I’ll get in the ring.’ So do we. We have loads of doubts about Tyson Fury. One, how does he look on Saturday? Let’s be honest, he didn’t look a million dollars against Arslanbek Makhmudov, but he’d been out for a long time. When AJ goes in there and hopefully does an unbelievable job on Prenga, we’ll see how keen he is. I’m sure he’ll take the fight, but when you look at AJ’s resume and everything that he’s done in terms of pulling out of fights, being reliable when signing contracts, let’s be honest, there’s only one winner in that comparison. So don’t worry about us. We’ll be there, but we’ve got to win on Saturday.”

Hearn also rejected the idea that one person deserves blame for the fight taking so many years to materialize. He said previous negotiations involved too many competing interests before Turki Alalshikh stepped in to negotiate deals with both camps. Hearn said that Joshua already has a signed agreement for the Fury fight. His immediate focus remains Prenga, with the Fury bout waiting if Joshua handles his business on Saturday.