Johnny Nelson not confident Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua goes ahead and predicts ‘petty stuff’ could be the deal breaker

Johnny Nelson is not confident Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua takes place before the end of the year, insisting both fighters will be to blame if no deal is struck.

Joshua has accepted Fury’s terms for a Battle of Britain set to take place on 3 December at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff with ‘The Gypsy King’s WBC heavyweight title on the line.

Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn, who promote Fury and Joshua respectively, have both spoken optimistically of a deal being struck but with no contracts signed, the clock is ticking with Warren suggesting on Wednesday the fight must be over the line by the end of the week.

Having seen the fight fall through in the past, former cruiserweight champion Nelson has serious concerns over the heavyweight showdown happening before the end of the year and believes hopes of it happening at all will disappear for good.

‘I’m not confident if I’m honest,’ Nelson told Metro.co.uk. ‘My feeling is, we have heard it from both fighters now, we have heard things from both camps. Tyson put the offer out there, we don’t know whether it was a bluff or not, and Anthony Joshua took it. They have agreed it.

‘Now there is a sense, especially from the AJ camp, that they are trying to price themselves out of the fight because they are agreeing to everything and they [Fury’s camp] then say oh we want this, we want that.

‘So it makes one think. Why are you doing that? The deal is getting done, you’ve gone public with it. I personally now think that the buck stops with the fighters. If this fight doesn’t happen because AJ disagrees with something now or if it doesn’t happen because Fury says he wants this instead, it lands on the fighters.

‘For whatever reason this fight doesn’t go ahead, the ego of the fighters is