EDDIE HEARN has been accused of "doing whatever he can" to prevent Anthony Joshua from fighting Tyson Fury.
The heavyweight stars are still in talks for a December 3 Battle of Britain at Cardiff's Principality Stadium.
AJ has had the contract for almost two weeks with broadcasters DAZN, BT Sport and ESPN also thrashing out a network deal.
But Hearn insisted the paperwork is not yet ready to be signed as they go through the finer terms and conditions.
That has led Hall of Famer Bob Arum to doubt that Joshua's promoter truly wants the fight to go ahead.
Arum said on talkSPORT: “Eddie Hearn is stalling everything, because he doesn’t want the fight to happen.
"And why doesn’t he want the fight to happen? Because Joshua’s lost three out of his last five fights and he figures to lose again if he fights Tyson Fury and so Eddie is in effect being an impediment.
“I don’t know of any issues, he sends a draft and then Frank and George [Warren] reply and then we don’t hear from Eddie for days, he’s stalling until it dies of its own volition.
"I don’t think Joshua is part of that. I think Joshua for whatever reason wants the fight to happen, I know Tyson Fury does.
“But, Eddie doesn’t and so Eddie is doing whatever he can to prevent the fight from happening.
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"From Eddie’s standpoint, he believes he has a valuable asset in Joshua who has now lost three out of five fights and figures to lose again, which could make it four out of six and it would make him a lot less valuable after the event, so he’s trying to prevent it from happening."
Joshua, 32, suffered consecutive losses to Oleksandr Usyk, 35, most recently in August in Saudi Arabia.
Usyk was in line to unify his belts against Fury, 34, but the Ukrainian ruled himself out until next year to recover from injuries.
That was when AJ received a surprise WBC title fight after accepting to concede a 60/40 financial split.
But Arum warned not to fault Fury if the fight does not come to fruition.
He said: “You can’t make a fight unless somebody agrees to the contract and if you put him in a torture chamber, he still wouldn’t agree to the contract.
"There’s no issues, if there was some issues then I could see it but there are no issues.
"Get in the goddamn room with the Warrens and sit down and finalize the contract and let’s get it signed.
"I don’t blame Tyson Fury for getting upset at what is happening.”
