Jeff Horn willing to dump rematch clause in negotiations with Tim Tszyu
Former world champion Jeff Horn has made a concession in his negotiations with Tim Tszyu but is standing his ground on another demand as the mega-bout moved a step closer to reality.
Boxing/MMA
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The planned Jeff Horn-Tim Tszyu superfight is a major step closer to being finalised after a key sticking point was resolved.
Negotiations for the bout had stalled recently because Horn had demanded a rematch clause in the contract, while Tszyu did not.
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But Horn has backtracked on his rematch demands, allowing the camps to move forward with talks for the multimillion dollar fight to take place in April.
“The rematch is fine, if they don’t want to do the rematch, I’m happy not doing a rematch,” Horn said in Sydney on Wednesday.
However, Horn will only agree to Tszyu’s demands for a 12-round fight if he gets more of the money, currently split 60-40 in his favour.
“There’s speed bumps in the road that are holding it up, we’re definitely not agreeing to a couple of things,” Horn said.
“He wants the fight to go 12 rounds. All I’ve got to say to that is, ‘That’s why I want to do 10 because he can pay me more to do 12 if he wants and we can do the 70-30 split’.
“Normally in the last few fights I’ve had, I’ve had a rematch clause because I’ve been the ‘A’ side.
“I’ve got the belts, he wants those ranking points, that’s why I wanted the rematch clause.
“I think there’ll be a breakthrough, I’m willing to do more rounds if he wants to make the split more, so he can have his way.”
Horn panned his previous rival Michael Zerafa, who he defeated in a brutal bout last December, for potentially negotiating a fight against Anthony Mundine.
“I think it’s a little bit ridiculous that they might be having a fight, Zerafa called me out so many times about fighting has-beens, then the first chance he’s got is with Mundine and he’s trying to pick a fight with him, go figure,” Horn said.
He also ended any talk of a third fight against Zerafa.
“I’ve got no interest in fighting Zerafa again, I’ve fought him twice already, I thought I’d only have to fight him once but had to rematch him, actually trained properly for the second one and got that win.
“It would be a struggle for me to listen to him about what he’s got to say about me.”