Eddie Hearn is confident that Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury will be going face-to-face in the first six months of 2021, which will be one of the most anticipated fights in all of boxing.
Speaking on the 'Ak and Barak Show' (on DAZN and Sirius XM Fight Nation), Hearn offered a positive update on talks for Joshua and Fury's next bout to be against one another.
"We're close," Hearn said. "We're backwards and forwards with contracts at the moment. The main thing I think is to get an agreement in place to be able to go out there because we're in a really difficult period right now where we don't know where we can have crowds for that time of year.
"It's gonna be May or June. The first thing to do is to agree to the terms in full, and then we'll go out and hope to secure the venue and date for that fight. Things have been progressing really well over the last week. I really believe you will see that fight around the end of May or early June of 2021. Everyone's working well in the right direction."
Joshua holds the WBA, WBO, and IBF titles after successfully retaining his "triple crown" with a ninth-round finish of mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev on Dec. 12.
WBC titleholder Fury, meanwhile, opted against a stay-busy fight in the latter months of 2020. That included a potential trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder, who he dethroned back in February. If the two do fight each other next, it would be, as it stands, a fight to determine the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the world since Lennox Lewis achieved the feat over 20 years ago.
Nonetheless, Hearn is optimistic Joshua vs. Fury will be just one part of a big bounce-back for boxing in 2021. He has taken a look at what he regarded as very encouraging numbers for "AJ" and other stars such as Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin on DAZN in December.
"We've had a huge week," Hearn said. "In seven days, we've had Anthony Joshua vs. Kubrat Pulev, we had Gennadiy Golovkin on a Friday night and then Canelo Alvarez on the Saturday.
"Now there's momentum going into 2021, starting, of course, with Ryan Garcia going up against Luke Campbell (on Saturday)."