Promoter Eddie Hearn believes that at least one of the planned 2021 fights between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua will be held outside the United Kingdom.
Both fighters’ camps have agreed financial terms to fight next year with the WBC, IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO belts currently held between the two champions.
However, Joshua will first contest the latter four titles with Kubrat Pulev on December 12, and he may vacate the WBO belt to avoid a mandatory challenge from Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury may also first have to take on Deontay Wilder in a trilogy fight with Fury, but the duo’s contract dispute is subject to arbitration. If Fury and Wilder have to fight in 2021 then it could put the Joshua-Fury fight back by several months.
Matchroom’s Hearn has talked recently of the difficulty of putting on certain fights without spectators to support some events, and it is not yet clear when spectators will be allowed back in big numbers to sporting events in the United Kingdom, with the British government currently enforcing a strict second lockdown.
He believes that at least one of the fights could take place in China or the Middle East as a result of the financial incentives offered by some countries.
Hearn told talkSPORT 2: “It’s very easy for people to sit down and say, ‘this fight must happen in the UK.’
“This is a sport where both fighters put their health and their faculty and sometimes their life on the line.
“You can’t expect fighters in a fight of this magnitude, the ultimate fight of their career, to take half the money to do it in the UK.”
Hearn pointed out that with the long-lasting effects of the coronavirus on the economy in Britain, it would be harder to make a huge fight such as this viable.
“We’re in a situation at the moment in this country and, at the moment rightfully so, where the government doesn’t invest money to bring major sporting events to this country,” he explained.
“They’ve got enough on their plate; they certainly shouldn’t be looking at that at the moment. Yet many countries, and we saw the [Andy] Ruiz fight in Saudi Arabia, have funds in place to bring major sporting events to their countries.
“So a lot of those countries are going to be making major financial plays to stage this fight.
“Ultimately, it won’t be me who decides. It will be the fighters who decide.”
Hearn described the huge differences in the sums on offer: “If you go to a fighter and their teams and, pulling numbers out of the sky, say you have £50m to fight in the UK or you have £100m to do the fight in the Middle East, it’s a very short conversation.
“Because they understand the risks involved. If you ask Tyson and you ask AJ, ‘where do you want this fight to happen?’ – blimey, obviously in the UK.
“Two British heavyweight world champions and we will do everything we can to make the fight here, by the way.
“But, we can’t ignore the other offers. I would certainly like to see one of the two fights, because it will be two fights, in the UK.
“And I do believe that is what the fighters want as well. But even in the current environment, there have been a number of sizeable approaches from around the world to stage this fight — the biggest fight in boxing.”