Tyson Fury has given Anthony Joshua more time to sign the contract for a heavyweight title fight in December - but his rival's camp are getting weary with his antics and demands.
Last Friday, the WBC champion gave Joshua until 5pm on Monday to seal the deal for the blockbuster all-British bout at the Principlaity Stadium in Cardiff on December 3.
Television executives from BT Sport and streaming service DAZN were scheduled to meet on Monday, with Joshua’s team having already verbally accepted Fury’s offer of a 60-40 purse split, but the Gypsy King ran out of patience and called it all off during an expletive-ridden Instagram post.
Fury has heavily criticised by boxing pundits, former fighters and fans alike for his handling of the situation and his apparent decision to turn to the unheralded Manuel Charr instead.
But he's now given his rival more time.
Fury said: "My promoter Frank Warren convinced me to let Queensberry carry on negotiating with your team this week, despite me knowing that you were never going to do this fight.
"So the deadline was Monday. I allowed Frank to continue doing meetings with your team and your broadcasters and all that. Now we have BT, DAZN and ESPN all on the same page. They are happy with everything, they are all ready to rock and roll.
This is a message to @anthonyjoshua.
— TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) September 29, 2022
My promoter Frank Warren convinced me to let Queensberry carry on negotiating with your team this week, despite me knowing that you were never going to do this fight… pic.twitter.com/XpcHOpZJzk
"You guys ask for a lot of stuff, you want to be co-promoters when you're a voluntary challenger. Guess what, I said give it them, let them be co-promoters.
"You wanted full transparency, even though you're not an equal shareholder in this party. You know what I said? Give them full transparency, I've got nothing to hide, I'm not trying to rob anybody, I've not robbed anybody of a penny in my life.
"So now you've got full transparency, everything is clean and fair. Now Joshua, the ball is really in your court son."
Joshua has previously insisted that he would sign the contract, but it had to go through his lawyers and management team.
In a direct challenge to him, Fury declared, "Everybody is done. If you're a man, and if you've got any sort of dignity and pride about you, you'll get this contract signed today. This is it. There is no more days, weeks, months, you've had the contract now for over two weeks and you still haven't signed it.
"Show the public that you're really the big coward that I know you are, and don't sign it. I don't care either way if you sign it or you don't, it makes no difference to me at all. You're a beaten man and I'm a world champion. I'm chucking you a massive bone, but I know I can punch a face in so I'm willing to give you an opportunity.
"There's nothing more to do, everyone is happy. Get your team onto mine, they will be available all day, like they've been available the last two weeks. Get this contract signed!
"Let the British fans have what they want. There is no running, you have to fight me. You cannot escape. The Fury is coming."
Joshua's camp respond
Joshua lost his WBA, IBF and WBO titles to Oleksandr Usyk last year and was recently outpointed again by the Ukrainian, but the Briton was offered a route back into the world title picture by Fury.
Joshua said on Sunday “of course I’m going to sign the contract – it’s just with some lawyers at the minute” although his promoter Eddie Hearn insisted there was “no chance” it would be done on Monday.
Hearn has now responded to Fury's latest deadline setting by saying: "I don't want to get involved with back and forths that are going to negatively impact this fight being made but we are quite baffled by this situation.
"When we agreed terms for this fight it took us over a week to receive a draft contract. We have not had that contract for 14 days. Over the next week we worked tirelessly and had a number of meetings with Queensbury to get the contract in some kind of decent shape. Last Monday we sent our final draft of the contract to Queensbury only to see Fury had publicly pulled out of the fight and it was no longer on the table.
"Yesterday we received comments from Queensbury on our final draft of the agreement of which is now being reviewed. I'm not sure why Tyson Fury keeps setting unrealistic deadlines while offering the fight to a number of other heavyweights for the selected dates. If he's serious about the fight then I suggest he lets Matchroom and Queensbury to keep working hard to make the fight. You can't keep publicly pulling out of the fight and then restart negotiations when there's been so many positive conversations.
"We'll see what happens from here."
Later he added: “I don’t think Tyson Fury really wants the fight, I think he wants to fight Manuel Charr. They couldn’t get AJ at a better time, he’s just come off a fight to Usyk. One day it’s on, one day it’s off. One day he’s retired, one day he’s come back. He’s retired seven times.
“All we can do is keep doing our job professionally with Queensberry Promotions and hope that he does actually want the fight.
“We’re doing all we can and even after being told the fight is off, we continue working to make it happen. We’re doing the right way and hopefully we can find a way.
“It’s not getting done today (Thursday) but Queensberry have never put a deadline on us. Tyson Fury has on Instagram but he’s got to let the teams get this deal done.
“We’re making great progress, but it’s not as simple as ‘just sign this bit of paper’.”
Mad Manuel
One of those other potential opponents was the German-based Charr and he's now released a video claiming Fury is running scared of him.
Mahmoud Charr reacts to Tyson Fury still trying to make the Anthony Joshua fight and accuses Fury of ducking him…
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) September 29, 2022
[📽️ Mahmoud Charr] pic.twitter.com/QI6F3P2J2x
