Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, who co-promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, believes Anthony Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn, is dragging his feet on finalizing an agreement.

The two fighters have agreed on a 60-40 split in Fury's favor, with the event being targeted to take place on December 3 in Cardiff.

Over the last few weeks, the discussions have become chaotic - with Fury threatening to go in another direction as he believes Joshua and Hearn are intentionally delaying the negotiations.

At one point Fury announced the fight was off - and said he was going to make a voluntary defense against Manuel Charr.

Fury's other co-promoter, Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions, spoke to his boxer and persuaded him to return to the negotiating table.

Arum feels Joshua is willing to sign the contract and move forward with the fight. The veteran promoter is not of the same opinion when speaking about Hearn.

“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," Arum told Talk Sport.

“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. 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.

“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.”