Fury-Joshua felt like the biggest fight that heavyweight boxing had to offer 12 months ago
It would be unwise now for Anthony Joshua to accept a fight with Tyson Fury. It might look like a chance to get into the title picture again, but in reality, the timing is all wrong for a fighter who is licking his wounds after successive defeats to Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua has questions to answer – about where he goes from here, whether he stays with new trainer Robert Garcia, and how he recovers physically and emotionally from that hugely disappointing experience in the Middle East. To go into camp in just a few weeks time for a December fight with Fury would be madness.
There is an element of game playing here, of course. Fury is a master of promotional teases and calling out Joshua on his social media was the ‘Gypsy King’ simply putting the boot in on his British rival by intimating that he wants to keep busy until he fights Usyk for the undisputed title, probably in 2023, after the Ukrainian has recovered from injuries he sustained in the Joshua fight.
Fury-Joshua felt like the biggest fight that heavyweight boxing had to offer 12 months ago, and we were due to have those two contests between them, but Deontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to fight Fury in a trilogy match scuppered that dream. Since then, those two defeats of Joshua at the masterful hands of Usyk have scrambled the chess game.
It is highly unlikely with all the moving parts, even if weird things happen in boxing, a sport where money talks louder than almost any other. Fury-Joshua will always be a huge stadium fight, whenever it happens – only Cardiff has the stadium to do it justice this year, at least – but revenue would probably be maximised after Fury beats Usyk (although that is far from certain) and Joshua has another victory – or even two – under his belt.
In spite of Eddie Hearn responding positively to Fury’s call out – “we are interested to listen to offers” – Joshua is more likely to fight Filip Hrgovic, Zhang Zhilei in China, or possibly Dillian Whyte, who is a free agent. None would carry the inherent risk of taking on the WBC heavyweight champion, who is close to the top of his game, even if he has retired at least twice since his last fight, the win over Whyte.
Hearn will go with his fighter’s wishes, and it might be that a combination of ego and cash is too much to turn down. It is likely that a potential all-British fight would prompt an £80 million-plus offer to host it from the Middle East, around the time of the World Cup in Qatar, and that sum is certainly tempting, as is the chance to become a three-time world champion.
But Joshua should resist it. The timing is all wrong.