LEEDS, Eng. — Today might see the world heavyweight title picture become clearer with purse bids for Tyson Fury's mandatory WBC world title defence against Dillian Whyte due at 6 p.m. GMT. At the time of writing, these are still set to go ahead, but judging by events over recent weeks, take it with a pinch of salt.
One man who like the fans is frustrated with the current situation surrounding Fury is Matchroom's Eddie Hearn. With vested interests in Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk and Whyte, Hearn has a lot of power in negotiations, but with disputes over splits and a break down in talks about a potential undisputed fight between Fury and Usyk, he now expects purse bids to go ahead.
"I think so, anything can happen," Hearn told DAZN News in an exclusive interview before the launch press conference for Kiko Martinez vs. Josh Warrington 2 in Leeds.
"It’s hard when you’re on the short at 20% which is what it is at the moment because you can manipulate the bid with your fighter like with Tyson Fury. You can agree a purse with him and overbid, it’s not going to actually cost you anything.
"We’ll be aggressive in the bid, I’m sure there’ll be some phone calls before the bid, but we’ll see what happens."
As mentioned previously, there was chance an undisputed heavyweight title between Fury and Usyk could have been made with both Joshua and Whyte receiving step aside fees, but negotiations broke down in the eleventh hour.
Now Hearn is adamant that Fury's intention to fight Usyk next was a mirrage and he instead wanted a tune-up fight before facing the Ukrainian for all the belts.
"Ultimately Tyson Fury wouldn’t fight Oleksandr Usyk straightaway, he wanted an interim fight which broke down the whole system," Hearn claimed.
"The system’s quite straight forward, Fury-Usyk winner fights Joshua, not Fury has a fight, then fights Usyk, then fights Joshua, that could be a year and a half, two years with Fury’s activity.
"No one asks Fury ‘were you prepared to fight Usyk straightaway’, because the answer is no. AJ will, we’ve done it before, so it doesn’t really matter because we’re all geared towards purse bids."
For boxing's most famous weight division, a circus is probably the best way to describe it. All interested parties are enaged in a 'blame game' across social media, but sooner or later the talking will have to stop and fights will need to be announced.
The eyes of the boxing world now look towards 6 p.m. in the hope that purse bids for Fury vs. Whyte take place and the future of the heavyweight division is decided for the next few months at least.