The pen has finally hit paper in the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua negotiations saga.
The boxing stars have signed a two-fight deal that will see the heavyweight titles unified. Top Rank promoter Eddie Hearn informed ESPN of the news Monday.
The initial meeting between Fury and Joshua will have a 50-50 purse split, while the rematch will be 60-40 in favor of the winner. While dates and locations aren’t set, it’s expected that both fights will take place in 2021, with the first in June or July and the second in November or December.
“The hard part is always getting everybody to put pen to paper,” Hearn told ESPN. “But this was a major effort from all parties to get this over the line. You had rival promoters, rival networks, and rival fighters.
“… I know how hard we’ve worked these last couple of months, and I just feel that this fight is so big it’s not a difficult sell. We’ve already had approaches from eight or nine sites. The offers have come from multiple countries in the Middle East, from Asia, Eastern Europe, and America.”
Fury (30-0-1) hasn’t competed since February 2020 when he defeated Deontay Wilder via seventh-round TKO in the highly anticipated rematch of their December 2018 draw. With that win, Fury picked up the WBC and The Ring heavyweight titles.
In January, Fury expressed frustration with the negotiations to fight Joshua. On a Top Rank event broadcast, Fury claimed he stopped training and was drinking 10 pints of beer a day.
Joshua (24-1) has won back-to-back fights since his seventh-round TKO upset loss to Andy Ruiz in June 2019. The two rematched in December 2019, when Joshua won back the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO titles he lost in the first fight.
This past December, Joshua retained his titles with a ninth-round knockout victory over Kubrat Pulev in London.
