Frank Warren’s son George says he’s done everything in his power to secure Anthony Josuha as the next opponent for Tyson Fury.
George spoke to talkSPORT’s White & Jordan to explain his side on why the Battle of Britain fell apart despite three weeks of back-and-forth conversations.
After Tyson Fury sounded out Oleksandr Usyk for an undisputed clash only to be told the Middle East wasn’t ready until 2023, Warren turned to AJ.
Usyk had just dominated and defeated Joshua for the second time in Saudi Arabia. It was like a gift for the Londoner to get that kind of title shot immediately.
Tyson Fury wanted a deal done quickly
Despite agreeing to the initial terms last month, George Warren says they continually hit brick walls and roadblocks in their attempts to finalize the bout.
“I think the first thing to say is there’s always going to be a difference in opinion in the extent of what needed to be done to get that deal over the line last week,” he told talkSPORT.
“My personal opinion is that everyone was working hard. There seemed to be intent from the AJ side to try and do this.
“There certainly was from our perspective to try and do this.
“We made extensive requests to their side verbally, in emails, and text messages. We chased them down to try and engage with us in a quicker fashion last week [from Tuesday].
“And it fell because quite frankly, we got to a point with them where communication coming back from them. The substance of that communication was lacking.
“I would say there was no ambition on their side to help me try and keep the thing going. That’s what it felt like by the end of it.
“I heard Eddie say the last time we spoke was on Thursday. The truth is we were waiting for a turnaround on a contract to come back on Wednesday evening.
“We didn’t get that. We instead got an email, a request from Frank Smith, who works for Matchroom. He asked us if we were still up for having discussions.
Anthony Joshua’s team accused of stalling
“Quite quickly after that, Eddie and I spoke in the night. It was left that he was going to email me something over to the extent of dealing with what they declared as their final issue related to the way that we drafted the contracts. This was related to our position of having the final say.
“On that call, I suggested we insert some type of language to deal with having a mediator in place to settle disputes.
“We followed that up on Thursday, inviting them to engage with us on that last outstanding point on the top line. That email didn’t get responded to.
“I tried to call Eddie a couple of times on Thursday, but he didn’t answer my calls. He didn’t get back to me.
“I briefly spoke to Freddie Cunningham [of 258 MGT] on Thursday. It was left that he was going to come back to me and let me know their position on how quickly they wanted to move on this thing.
“I chased them up with a phone call, didn’t get a return. I didn’t hear back from them on the text I sent them.
“And the last bit of communication was myself and Frank Smith. We spoke on Friday relating to a different fight that we’re looking to try and finalize with Matchroom.
The fight is off
“On that call, we briefly touched on it. He said that he’d been out of the loop; he’d been away traveling for work. But he was going to catch up with his side and return to me. He would let me know if there was anything that they could do in the short term to keep the conversations going.
“I didn’t hear back, so my assumption is they as a group just decided for whatever reason that they didn’t wanna engage last week to try and get this thing over the line. It’s disappointing.”
UK fans are the ones who miss out yet again as the December 3rd fight falls apart for the second time in months.
The fight came with a two-fight deal option to rematch between April and June next year at Wembley. The British boxing fraternity gets none instead of getting a possible fight double.
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