Joshua wants £40m to step aside for Fury, Usyk

Eddie Hearn has suggested Anthony Joshua would be willing to step aside and allow Tyson Fury to face Oleksandr Usyk for £40m after entering talks with the Gypsy King’s team over a potential deal.

Joshua was beaten conclusively by Usyk at the end of September, losing his unified heavyweight titles via unanimous decision on a disappointing night at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Two weeks after that humbling he opted to trigger his immediate rematch clause, and Hearn expected the return bout to take place either in March or April next year.

However, in recent weeks talk has surfaced of Joshua instead accepting an offer to step aside for a potential showdown between Usyk and Fury, which would crown the first undisputed heavyweight champion in over two decades.

Fury, who retained his WBC title by knocking out Deontay Wilder, was on the verge of agreeing to face Dillian Whyte in his next bout, but the WBC refused to name him as the Gypsy King’s mandatory challenger.

He has therefore turned his attention to an undisputed battle with Usyk, an option which became all the more realistic when Joshua recently hinted that a step-aside deal ‘may make sense for business’.

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Now Hearn, AJ’s long-time promoter, has named his man’s price to let Fury and Usyk scrap it out for heavyweight supremacy next year.

The Matchroom chief told Boxing King Media, “Seven figures? A million? If you want to get him not to fight Oleksandr Usyk you have to times that by 40…

“At the moment there is communication between the two teams to say is it something, and the answer is AJ has not been spoken to about this yet.

“I’ll deal with it and when I feel there’s an opportunity for Anthony and 258 (Management) we’ll sit down with them and present it to them but I won’t do that until it’s the right opportunity.

“If there’s a route and an offer and it makes sense then we’ll see but right now, it’s just conversations between the camps.”