Fury needs to get real if hewantsafightwith superstar Joshua: Hearn
EDDIE Hearn has branded the all-British heavyweight super fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury ‘unmakeable’.
Fury is free to box again after accepting a backdated twoyear ban from Ukad relating to elevated levels of nandrolone found during a test back in February 2015.
The former unified heavyweight champion of the world has not boxed since November 2015, when he famously beat Wladimir Klitschko in Germany, but he is finally back in the gym and planning to fight within the next few months.
Fury (right) has battled depression and drug abuse since his last outing, but his imminent return has opened the door to a mouth-watering showdown with Joshua, the current WBA and IBF champion.
The idea of a summer clash at Wembley Stadium had even been suggested, with Joshua and his team keen to box three times during what could become a career-defining and money-spinning 2018.
Unification fights with WBO champion Joseph Parker and Deontay Wilder, the WBC king, could come to fruition, but neither will generate the same interest as a showdown with Fury, the magnitude of which would eclipse any other contest in British boxing history.
But Joshua’s promoter Hearn has revealed that recent talks with Fury about a potential Josh- ua clash went so badly that he now doubts whether it will ever happen.
“The only way Fury is going to get the Joshua fight is with us,” said Hearn, who has offered to facilitate Fury’s comeback by signing the 29-year-old to his promotional company Matchroom.
“So I’ve been talking to Fury about a plan which would lead to the Joshua fight.
“I said to him ‘we can’t talk about the Joshua fight now, because you can’t expect to have a conversation about it when you haven’t boxed for two years’. He might come back and stink the place out and have small value in the fight.
“He came back to me and said ‘right, I’ll make it really easy for you and give you a deal that you will accept straight away’. Then he said ‘I want a 60/40 split and all the champion’s benefits. I want to walk second, it’s my name on the poster and I want choice of changing rooms’.
“It made me laugh, I said ‘that’s great, yeah, good joke’. But he was deadly serious. He says Joshua is only where he is because of him. Then I realised he was actually serious with those terms.”
Since Fury was last seen in the ring, Joshua has evolved into one of the biggest stars in world boxing, picking up two of Fury’s old titles on the way.
The 2012 Olympic gold medalist is now 20-0, all by knockout, and is by far the biggest commercial draw in the country, highlighted by the fact that his last two fights have been in front of sold-out stadium crowds.
LIKE most other inter-county footballers considering their future, Down’s Mark Poland consulted those he trusted the most. For him, it was his father John and mother Brenda. They weren’t entirely keen.
Sitting in a cafe in Newry a month after the announcement he was bringing it to an end, he recounts: “They always told me, ‘go back, go back’, and I was going back.”
He went to the team meeting on November 15. But even as the 32-year-old listened to manager Eamonn Burns laying out his plans for the year ahead, the doubts poisoned his mind.
According to insiders at Down training, he had never been moving as well as he had last summer. And yet the only Championship action he would get was all in garbage time.
“I had boys coming up to me and telling me I deserved more gametime,” he says.
“I knew myself I should have. I have absolutely no doubt about that. If I was playing that well at training and not getting much gametime, what was it going to be like this time?”
So the very next day he had the conversation with Burns. He was gone. That wasn’t so bad, but telling his parents was much tougher.
“They were devastated,” he recalls.
“Dad isn’t the emotional type. But he sent me a message saying it was hard to believe.
“He said he shed a tear or two and thought back to a south Down game in 1995, 1996. And they would have seen me play every age group up. I think it was a shock to them.
“I had told him I was going back another year. But then I THERE are better ways of your county career ending than it just fizzling out with the odd token appearance off the bench.
Unfortunately, that was the lot of Mark Poland as he couldn’t secure a starting slot over the summer as Down reached the Ulster final and ultimate defeat to Tyrone.
“It annoyed me. There is no point painting it up any other way,” he says now.
“If we had won those games it wouldn’t have bothered me. came out of that meeting and I just had my mind made up that it was the right time for me to step outside.”
As he points out, county players are not slow in telling the outside world of all the sacrifices they make, but adds in that the sacrifice extends to immediate family.
He has one of his own now too. His wife Emer is a brand
“There wasn’t anyone happier than me in the Athletic Grounds or Pairc Esler. But when you are really going at it in training and doing everything you can to make the team...
“But there were other factors too. It wasn’t all about getting on or getting gametime. I have never, ever took a Down jersey for granted.”
His Ulster final lasted all of 14 minutes. On as a sub for Shay Millar, he was off again shortly after a collision with Tyrone’s Colm Cavanagh.
“I was just wanting to get on the ball and go at them, because ambassador in Dublin for Jameson Whiskey, whose job involves a lot of travelling. They have little Cillian now too, at 16 months.
“Having your first child as well, you want to be around as much as possible,” he said.
When he looks back on his career in the red and black, 2010 is the cloud that will continue to hound that generation I felt we were very laboured. There was nobody really penetrating at all,” Poland recalls.
“As far as I remember I broke the tackle, I was stumbling at the same time, and whenever I was falling I just caught Colm Cavanagh’s knee.
“It was totally innocuous, but after that I can’t remember much either way.”
That game reflected how the sport has changed, largely freezing out players like Poland.
He himself regrets the changes and hopes that the example of Dublin can cause a change in philosophy. of Down footballers — Poland, Benny Coulter, Brendan McVeigh, Marty Clarke, Danny Hughes and so on.
After 27 minutes, Down were upby0-7to0-2.Corktook32 minutes to score their first point from play. It seemed Sam was coming to Down for the sixth time.
Then Daniel Goulding caught fire, hitting nine points.
“You beat one, and then there is another man clinging on to you. But that is the way the game is evolving and, to me, it’s going to come in cycles,” he explains.
“At that time it was sickening. And it probably wasn’t enjoyable for supporters. Sport should be about fun. There are a lot of people who feel it is about winning. To me it’s about winning, but with a bit of style and class too.
“Those games in 2010 (on the run to the All-Ireland final), especially against Kildare, it was probably one of the best games I have ever been involved in. That’s what people want.”