Eddie Hearn, promoter for IBF, WBO, IBO, WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, has no problem with a 50-50 split on the financial end of a high stakes unification with WBC champion Tyson Fury.
“I’ve always felt that, commercially, Anthony Joshua is on another planet to Tyson Fury," Hearn told The Guardian.
“You’ve only got to look at AJ’s endorsement deals and the money he makes. The reason that Tyson Fury couldn’t fight in December is that they couldn’t generate the pay-per-view money or the American TV money that AJ can. But Tyson Fury is still a huge star and if you don’t offer him 50/50 then he ain’t going to take it. Do I think he should get 50/50? Commercially, no. But achievement-wise and on recent performances? Yeah, I do.”
This coming Saturday night, Joshua defends his world titles against mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev at SSE Arena at Wembley.
Should Joshua win, then Hearn will move forward with his discussions to finalize a 2021 unification pact with Fury's promoter, Top Rank and Frank Warren.
“Our job over the next couple of weeks is to get that [unification] fight in place,” Hearn said. “If AJ beats Pulev, we want to go to the governing bodies and say: ‘Deal agreed, contracts signed and this is the proposed date. Will you sanction it as an undisputed fight?’”
"We’ll discuss with both management teams the opportunities that are out there in terms of site fees and money in the pot. AJ has consistently earned a lot of money and will he care less about the number in the pot than Fury? Probably. But he’s not going to do it for half the money because it sounds nice. His team is going to make the right decision for his career.
“But we have to rely on revenue generated via the gate and not the revenue generated by a tourism board or by a government to bring an event like that to another country. It will probably be a 50% pay cut to do the fight in the UK and that’s how brutal it is.”
