The Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury two-parter could be announced imminently, Gareth A Davies believes.
Boxing journalist Davies was talking to Boxing with Chris Mannix on DAZN, and gave an update on how talks were progressing, and the financial details.
“I think we’re very close, within a fortnight of that contract being signed,” he said.
“The contract deal — 50-50, 60-40 for the loser (in the second fight, if it happens) — is agreed.
“The teams of lawyers are going over the fine print at the moment.”
While Joshua was confident of a deal when doing a livestream interview last weekend, Fury more recently sounded pessimistic. Davies believes there are no reasons for concern.
“Anthony Joshua was cryptically saying last week that he sounded optimistic.
“That interview Tyson Fury did, where he seemed to pour water on the fire was just him expressing frustration.”
Davies explained that Fury is mainly troubled by the idea of time out of the ring hurting his chances ahead of any fight.
“Privately he told me that deal would be done a few days ago. He gave it until the end of February only because he didn’t get a December fight. We’ve only now just passed the anniversary of a year since he fought Deontay Wilder," he said.
“I think it was just frustration that if this fight doesn’t get signed and sealed by the end of April then he’s losing time, because he’s 19-20 months out.
“If there’s a fight in July, he’s been out for 18 months.”
“Activity is one of the key discussions in boxing at the moment. We’re seeing champions struggle because of covid. So it’s pure frustration.”