Tyson Fury extends deadline for Anthony Joshua to sign fight contract through Thursday

The Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua fight looked to be counted out for good this week, but turns out rose up at the count of nine.

Fury resurrected hopes for making the all-British heavyweight showdown by announcing through Instagram that he was still open to the matchup, provided that Joshua signed the fight today, Thursday, September 29.

Fury had initially set a public deadline of Monday for Joshua to sign the contract, but Joshua’s team said they would not be ready to sign the deal as of yet, as their legal team was reviewing the paperwork. Fury says Joshua’s team had the contract for two weeks, and adds that promoter Frank Warren had convinced him to keep the door open to making a deal.

“Even though I knew you wouldn’t sign this contract, I allowed Frank to continue doing meetings with your team. Now we have BT, DAZN, ESPN all on the same page. They’re happy with everything. They’re ready to rock and roll,” said Fury (32-0-1, 23 knockouts), the lineal and WBC heavyweight champion, in a video posted to Instagram.

Fury revealed that his side had agreed to Joshua’s team’s demands to be co-promoters for the event, which is targeted for December 3, and that they would grant “full transparency” in all contracts with event partners.

“Now Joshua, the ball is really in your court, son,” continued Fury, who was last in the ring in April, stopping Dillian Whyte in six rounds. “If you’re a man and you’ve got any sort of dignity about you, you’ll get this contract signed today. This is it, there’s no more days, weeks, months.”

Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) is a former two-time unified heavyweight titleholder but is coming off back to back losses to Oleksandr Usyk.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing poured cold water on the possibility of a contract being returned by today, telling Sky Sports that he is “quite baffled” by claims that the contract has been in their possession for two weeks, saying that it took over a week to receive a contract draft.

“Over the next week we’ve worked tirelessly and had a number of meetings with Queensbury to get the contract in some kind of decent shape,” said Hearn.

“Last Monday we sent our final draft of the contract only to see that Tyson Fury had publicly pulled out of the fight and that it was no longer on the table.”

Hearn also claims that Fury had made a fight offer to another British heavyweight boxer, Dereck Chisora (33-12, 23 KOs), just a day prior to releasing his latest video.

“You can’t publicly keep pulling out of a fight and then restart negotiations when there has been so many positive conversations had. We’ll see what happens from here,” added Hearn.

Fury and Chisora have previously fought twice, with Fury winning their first meeting in 2011 by unanimous decision, and their second one by tenth round stoppage in 2014.

The post Tyson Fury extends deadline for Anthony Joshua to sign fight contract through Thursday appeared first on The Ring.