ANTHONY JOSHUA is in training to fight Tyson Fury – after promoter Frank Warren revealed a deal is 90 per cent done.
AJ has agreed to concede to a 60/40 financial split after being offered a WBC title shot on December 3 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
Anthony Joshua sparring with Richard Riakporhe
And it seems he is wasting no time in getting to work as he was pictured in a conditioned sparring session with Richard Riakporhe, 32.
His promoter Eddie Hearn met with Frank Warren’s son George and the pair have since been thrashing out a deal.
And Warren is now in a position to send off official paperwork but warned the fight is not guaranteed until both sign on the dotted line.
He said on talkSPORT: “The contracts are on their way.
“But I’m not going into great detail about this because we saw what happened last time round with people making statements and so forth and it all fell apart.
“This fight won’t be on until it’s signed, but everybody wants it to happen.
“There aren’t any obstacles in the way, so hopefully very quickly we can get it over the line, but until it’s signed, it’s not on.
“When you’re a promoter, you’re an optimist. That’s what you do. You’re in the business of trying to make events happen, so we’re all excited about it.
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“I’m excited about it as a fight because I always felt that Tyson has the beating of AJ and now we’re gonna find out if we get this over the line.”
Fury, 34, announced his retirement from boxing in April after knocking out Dillian Whyte, also 34, at Wembley.
But five months later Oleksandr Usyk, 35, beat Joshua, 32, on points for the second time in the space of 11 months.
It then set up the heavyweight division’s first four-belt unification bout, although Usyk ruled himself out until next year.
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That caused Fury to unexpectedly turn his attention to Joshua, seemingly ending his latest retirement claim.
Warren said: “I knew he would fight because Tyson is a fighting man and he’s in the gym all the time.
“He keeps himself really well and he doesn’t get out of condition.
“I believe his mentality is that when he’s in the gym he needs something to aim for and what does he aim for if he’s a world champion boxer, it’s to fight and that’s what it was.
“He made it very clear to me a couple of weeks ago that he wants to fight and we were talking about a couple of opponents.
“We were getting quite close to announcing something and then we had this conversation and he just said, ‘make that happen’.”
Tyson Fury with his promoter Frank Warren
