TYSON FURY and Anthony Joshua have been warned Saudi Arabia will not be negotiated with over any sensational £325million December showdowns.
AJ promoter Eddie Hearn reckons he is visiting the Kingdom next week to discuss a stunning $400m card that involves Morecambe’s 34-year-old WBC champ against WBA, IBF and WBO king Oleksandr Usyk, 36, in an overdue undisputed decider.
And the chief support is supposed to be 33-year-old Joshua’s overdue battle with American knockout sensation Deontay Wilder, 37.
But Fury has already broken his recent social media silence to label the speculation as “total BS”.
Fury walked away from talks to hold the Usyk fight in Riyadh at the start of Spring after the Ukraine icon signed his half of a mega-money deal.
And AJ failed to secure undisputed bouts with Wilder and Fury – during their WBC reigns – over the five years he held the other three major belts, before Usyk dethroned him over two bouts.
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So fans should not get too excited about the four of the most famous and highly paid men all agreeing to share the limelight and prize pot.
And Amer Abdallah – head of boxing for Skills Challenge who runs the country’s boxing – says these divas will not be able to haggle.
He told SunSport: “Could Usyk vs Fury, Fury vs AJ, Wilder vs AJ all happen? Of course, they could.
“But a lot of people think they will go to Saudi and just grab this free money but everything is very calculated in how it is done.
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“There are a lot of factors that people don’t know about at the back end.
“Even when the purses look very high, we look at the numbers and make sure that everything has a return, not just from a financial perspective but along a broad spectrum of returns from each fight.
“It’s not free money that is being handed out, it is very calculated in how purses are offered.
“All of the options are open but when an offer is made, that is the offer, you take it or leave it.
“There are plenty of great fights out there and everybody is lined up to fight in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because there is a premium price and we are able and happy to pay it.
“But we want the fights that we want and that is how it is going to end up being. When an offer is made, that is the offer.”
Fury was already in talks with Team Usyk about the first-ever four-belt heavyweight clash, even before he outpointed Joshua for a second time in Saudi in August.
The date and 50-50 purse split were all agreed before the Brit walked away from the deal and then blew the April 29 Wembley version with more financial wrangling.
It has left British boxing fans fuming and doesn’t seem to have impressed the powerful Sheikhs either.
Abdallah said: “I believe the money offered was very generous and fair.
“I can even go as far to say it was a premium price for that fight.
“When Saudi Arabia makes an offer, we make an offer, that’s the number and it is take-it-or-leave-it.
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“I thought it was a very generous number, there was a lot of back-and-forth and it didn’t work out.
“Usyk and his team are very easy to deal with and they want to fight, they agreed to a lot of Fury’s terms, they bent over to make it happen.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
