Fury's Former Promoter Not Surprised Wilder Derailed Joshua Unification

Mick Hennessy, former promoter for WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, is not surprised that the unification clash with Anthony Joshua imploded last week.

Fury, who is currently promoter by Frank Warren of Queensberry and Bob Arum of Top Rank, seemed to be a few steps away from finalizing a clash against Joshua, who holds the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO titles.

They had a date of August 14th in Saudi Arabia.

The fight was derailed last Monday, when an arbitrator ruled that Fury must honor a contractual clause to have an immediate rematch with Deontay Wilder.

The clause stems from their rematch back in February of 2020, when Fury stopped Wilder in seven rounds to capture the WBC title.

Fury and Wilder have officially signed contracts to face each other for a third time, with the current target being July 24th in Las Vegas.

If he was still driving the Fury train, Hennessy would have waited until the arbitration was over before he took part in serious negotiations for a Joshua unification.

"I wasn't surprised one little bit really, because you've got to realize that Deontay Wilder has got very, very capable and extremely professional people in Shelly Finkel and Al Haymon and although they haven't joined the circus, they've been sitting in the background, doing their due diligence, and not mouthing off," Hennessy said to Sky Sports.

"They've been quietly working away in the background and when you know how good and how capable these people are - I knew something like this was going to come out, 100 percent. I knew it, so it didn't surprise me in the least.

"Would I have done something different? Yeah, 100 percent. You can't put deals together while there is an arbitration in place. That's way too presumptuous. It's crazy. Maybe during that period, if they were able to fight in other fights, especially Joshua. Joshua could have been working this whole time, couldn't he."