Frank Warren on Joshua-Fury: ‘These guys will have to dig deep’

Ahead of staging the August 29 IBF heavyweight title fight between Moses Itauma and Filip Hrgovic in London, promoter Frank Warren said: “One thing is for sure, the British heavyweight scene is alive.”

Itauma is one of a new generation of heavyweights, tasked with picking up from where the likes of Oleksandr Usyk, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury leave off.

With increased belief that the fight between UK veterans Joshua and Fury will take place in New York on November 20, Warren said: “That, at this moment, I can’t comment on. That will be up to His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] to announce when he is ready to announce it.”

The International Boxing Hall of Fame promoter was asked on a media call today whether the fight belonged in the UK. Warren said: “Of course I do, but they contacted Wembley, didn’t they, Sela, and asked if they would push the time back and, as far as I understand, that has not happened.”

The promoter was also questioned about when a possible announcement for the heavyweight fight could be expected, but would not comment on a timeline.

“No, the fighters will just need to get into training sometime in September, so that is what will happen in early September,” he said. “They will be ticking over at the moment, I’m sure. I can only speak for Tyson but he is with his family. He has been in two training camps after being out for a long time, so he is spending some time on the Isle of Man with his family and then, as soon as the date’s announced, he will get down to the serious business and bring in sparring partners and prepare for the fight. I believe the fight will go on in November.”

Promoter Eddie Hearn made it clear that the contract Joshua initially signed stated that the fight would take place in the UK. Has Fury agreed to fight Joshua in America or is he contracted to do it in the UK?

“I can’t comment on that at the moment because it is not for me to do it,” Warren explained. “We have our arrangement and promotional arrangement with Tyson but it is not for me to announce what is going to happen with that fight yet… You have a big fight coming up with the two senior heavyweights in Tyson and AJ. Everybody is waiting for that to happen in November and be announced. In the meantime, you have got all these other guys jockeying around.”

While many will point out that a fight between a 37-year-old Joshua and 38-year-old Fury will see both boxing past their best years, Warren said that maybe the time is right for the type of fight they would deliver.

“In some ways it depends what you are looking for in a fight… Look at [Wladimir] Klitschko when he fought AJ. AJ was in his prime and Klitschko came off a loss against Tyson and wasn’t at his best, but it was a great fight. Who would have won in his prime? You would have liked to see that fight in their primes and your money would have probably gone on Klitschko, who knows? The one thing about these guys is there is only a year between their ages and, irrespective of when it would have taken place, the fact is it didn’t and what we have got is what we have got now. We have two guys who are getting very well paid but, more importantly, they both want to win the fight in a big way. Neither wants to be the loser. There comes a time in some fighters’ careers where people think they are maybe not at their best but they go and dig deep to find something else. These two guys will have to dig deep when they fight each other because they both want it and we’ll find out who wants it the most. Me? I say all day long it is Tyson but we’ll find out when that first bell goes.”

Both heavyweights came through their July runouts one day apart, with Fury stopping Mariusz Wach and Joshua climbing off the floor twice to stop Kristian Prenga in the second round.

Some said the toll of the tragic crash Joshua was involved in in Nigeria in December, which claimed the lives of two of his best friends, meant that Joshua might have needed more time before a fight of that magnitude and the pressures that come with it.

Asked whether he felt Joshua was committed to fight in November, Warren said: “He has got plenty of time to get ready. He has had two fights in, what, the last seven months. Jake Paul and Prenga, they are the two fights he has had and he is doing a training camp with [Oleksandr] Usyk, so what does he do if he doesn’t fight? He will carry on training, training and training and he will be getting older, as will Tyson, so what is the point? Get on with it. I am actually going to keep it to myself at this stage what AJ thinks, but what I do know is he is a dangerous man when he catches you. Coming forward he throws big punches and if he thinks he can catch Tyson and if he thinks he can hurt him, then he will fancy the fight. I think he thinks he can hurt him but the problem he has got for himself is that he gets caught and he goes over. Looking at the Prenga fight, if that had been Tyson in there, that would have been all over.”