Derek Chisora says complications with “sponsors and promoters” led to the recent Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua meltdown.
After Oleksandr Usyk postponed a unification fight to 2023, Fury offered Joshua a way back into the world title picture in September.
Joshua agreed to a 60-40 split in favor of the Gypsy King for the WBC title shot and also agreed to his preferred date of December 3. However, after weeks of negotiations between Matchroom and Queensberry Promotions, the talks collapsed.
Chisora, who fought and lost twice to Fury in 2011 and 2014, was brought to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to fight the undefeated heavyweight.
Led by Joshua’s 268 MGT group, ‘Del Boy’ insisted the ‘Battle of Britain’ he hoped for was failing for reasons beyond the control of the fighters and insisted ‘businessmen’ complications arose.
“AJ was unable to accept the fight because there were a lot of complications with sponsors and promoters,” Chisora told Sky Sports.
“Fighters always want to fight, just fight, but the complications come from the business people around them who get in their way.
Instead, Fury will fight Chisora at Tottenham on December 3 (Picture: Getty)
“The directors and promoters get in the way, they make it difficult. Even that fight and that contract gave me a headache and stressed me out. People always think that fighting a big fight is easy, but it’s always a headache.
While Fury now focuses on old foe Chisora, the London heavyweight believes he still spends too much time talking about Joshua.
“AJ lives rent free in Tyson’s mind.” Chisora said.
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“Tyson wakes up every day thinking about AJ and he can’t do an interview without mentioning AJ. AJ lives his life and does his thing. I don’t know why Tyson keeps talking about AJ.
Joshua, meanwhile, has postponed plans to return to the ring before the end of the year.
The former champion was due to fight again on December 17, and Eddie Hearn is now looking at February or March as a more realistic timeline.
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