Promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed he baulked at signing current WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury 31-0-1 (22) in 2017.
At the time Fury had blown up in weight following his unanimous decision win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. In the wake of the victory Fury walked away from the ring for two-and-a-half years suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues.
The year before he returned to the ring, Hearn considered offering Fury a contract.
“With Tyson, I flew him out to Monaco and he was about 26-stone,” the Matchroom Boxing boss said on the Boxing Social podcast. “He was sweating, and I just thought to myself ‘you ain’t ever fighting again’.
“So the plan was to have two easy fights, by that we meant the likes of Sefer Seferi which he did, but then have a step-up and fight like Manuel Charr.
“I was just thinking… If I had known that he would fight Sefer Seferi, someone else and then Deontay Wilder, I would have been all over it.”
Fury went on to face Wilder three time. In the first bout in December 2018 he had to settle for a split draw but went on to give the American his first loss by seventh-round knockout in February 2020.
Last October, Fury again knocked out Wilder, this time in the 11th round.
Hearn insists he has no regrets about not signing Fury, who was expected to face then-unified champion Anthony Joshua 24-2 (22) last summer before an independent arbiter rule The Gypsy King owed Wilder a third fight.
“I don’t have regret,” Hearn said. “But would I have love to have been involved in Fury-Wilder? Of course, that’s my bread and butter!
“That’s what I live for, but at the same time I know we had Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora and those kinds of people but it would have been a really awkward situation to try and have both Fury and AJ.
“You can’t say you wouldn’t respect a fighter and a character like Tyson Fury because he’s become a big star.”
“I have a huge amount of respect for Tyson Fury,” Hearn continued. “People sometimes get it mixed because he’ll say this and I’ll say that, but this is a guy that did what most couldn’t do.
“He got himself from a physical position where he was finished, done, to get back to not just being fighting fit, but he went and won the world heavyweight championship.
“I never really say anything bad about Tyson Fury, sometimes I’ve thought he was the best heavyweight in the world and he’s gone on to prove that right now, on paper, he’s the number one heavyweight in the world.
“I don’t mind saying it, I respect people that go on and achieve success and greatness.
“He is on another team, I guess you could call it that, but he proved me wrong.”
