Fury’s promoter explains why Joshua fight will ‘never happen’

Tyson Fury’s promoter Bob Arum has claimed a unification fight with Anthony Joshua will ‘never happen’ because Joshua will lose his next bout against Kubrat Pulev.

Matchroom Boxing chief Eddie Hearn excited fans this week by claiming he was in talks with Top Rank over a December fight between his fighter, the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO world heavyweight champion Joshua, and the new WBC champion, fellow Brit Fury.

But Arum has denied that a deal for an all-British heavyweight title clash is almost done and says he doubts Fury will ever fight Joshua, who he expects to lose to Pulev. Joshua will put his belts on the line against the 38-year-old Bulgarian in June at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

‘Fury-Joshua is never going to happen,’ Arum told The Times. ‘Pulev is going to knock Joshua out so why would I talk to Eddie [his promoter], who I love dearly, about a Joshua-Fury fight?

‘I think Pulev wins and then I negotiate with myself to do a Pulev-Fury fight. Let’s make this crystal clear, I am co-promoter of Tyson and the other co-promoter is Frank Warren.

Despite talking up a fight between Joshua and Fury, Hearn has insisted that his fighter must concentrate fully on Pulev, having suffered a shock defeat to Andy Ruiz less than 12 months ago.

And Arum said: ‘Joshua was the man on top and then he got knocked out by Andy Ruiz who fought almost all his fights with us, so we know how good and not so good he is.

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The fight he had to regain his belts I discount completely because Andy could not control himself, didn’t train for the fight and came in obese. ‘Even then Joshua did not engage with him, he outboxed him. Pulev is yards and yards better than Andy Ruiz.’