Bob Arum claimed there is no rush for advanced talks to finalise the previously-agreed 2021 superfight between WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and WBA, WBO and IBF titleholder Anthony Joshua, because he believes Kubrat Pulev will dethrone Joshua on Dec. 12, anyway.
Joshua returns to the ring for the first time since reclaiming his belts from Andy Ruiz Jr., who handed him his first professional defeat in June 2019 before losing the rematch six months later.
The mandatory defense against Bulgaria's Pulev, taking place at a venue to be confirmed and likely to feature no fans due to England resuming some of their COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, is Joshua's last port of call before he can focus on setting up a fight with Fury, who is also expected to compete in December.
Financial terms for Fury vs. Joshua were agreed in principle earlier this year, but Arum says the situation will remain on the backburner until Joshua proves he can beat Pulev.
“I’m involved with everybody, including Eddie (Hearn)," he told The Gary Newbon Sports Show. “I said ‘don’t make plans so quick for a Fury-Joshua fight because I think Pulev is going to beat Joshua.’
“Let me explain my theory," continued Arum. "Joshua got knocked out by Andy Ruiz, who is not a puncher, never been a puncher, and I know that because thirty-odd fights that Ruiz had, we promoted.
“He has quick hands, he’s not a bad heavyweight, but he’s not a puncher. He devastated Joshua and knocked him out.
“Then the second fight, what happened there? Joshua ran around the ring, Ruiz had celebrated so much and gotten so obese that he couldn’t catch him and that was the fight.
“So I think Joshua is still vulnerable and Pulev is a real tough, rugged heavyweight.”
Arum wasn't done badmouthing Joshua, as he went on to pin one of the key early details of Fury-Joshua talks — that the contract will be for two fights between the British stars — on rival promoter Eddie Hearn, who manages Joshua.
In his latest of many complaints about the use of rematches in boxing, Arum says it is Hearn who wants it to be a two-fight agreement, whereas he believes Fury will finish Joshua so quickly, a second fight would be pointless.
“I’m against rematches," continued Arum, who agreed to a three-fight deal between Fury and the man he beat for the WBC title, Deontay Wilder, and was determined to make the third fight happen in December, getting as far as earmarking a Dec. 19 date at the Las Vegas Raiders' new NFL stadium until those plans fell through.
“When it was proposed to us on Fury’s side by Eddie, that’s what he proposed. A fight and a rematch.
"I just think that for example if Joshua beats Pulev and Fury fights Joshua, I really believe that Fury will take Joshua out in two or three rounds, if that long.
“And then so who wants to see a rematch? But if Eddie insists on that rematch provision to get the deal done, we would go along with it.”