(Photo by Anthony Causi) Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury says he wants unbeaten Londoner Anthony Joshua to defeat defending IBF titlist Charles Martin a week tomorrow, but the outspoken “Gypsy King” doesn’t think Joshua is close to good enough to do so. Talking (talking being what he has been doing far more than fighting over the past few months, as he awaits his return fight with Wladimir Klitschko) with The Mail, Fury branded the unbeaten 2012 Olympic gold medallist “useless,” with “no idea how to defend himself.”
Fury goes as far as to say Joshua “needs a miracle” to defeat the unbeaten southpaw who will make his first title defence on April 9th.
“Joshua can’t box,” Fury said. “He doesn’t have a jab. His movement is terrible and he’s wide open with no idea how to defend himself. The only time he’s been hit hard in his professional career, that big shot by Dillian Whyte in his last fight, it would have been all over if he had been in there with a big heavyweight who knew how to finish. This game is not about bodybuilding. It’s about knowing how to box. He’s getting knocked out.”
Fury is unwilling to give Joshua anything more than a “lucky” puncher’s chance against Martin, a fighter he calls “not the greatest” but a “big, calm, balanced and patient southpaw who can punch.” Fury said he hopes Joshua can get the win, so he can fight him down the road in what would be a huge money fight, likely a sold-out stadium fight. Fury added how he is now wondering whether or not Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn put his star heavyweight in the Martin fight so as to “cash out.”
Fury’s strange dislike of Joshua aside (he makes some good points, the Whyte punch that stiffened Joshua being something that alarmed a number of fans, for example) most people think Joshua will defeat Martin next week, most likely by KO. Maybe Fury sees more than these people do, but is Joshua, an Olympic gold winner who many good judges have called the next dominant heavyweight (former king Wladimir Klitschko among them) really “useless?”
Fury says a lot of things as we know, often speaking with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek, and deep down, he surely respects Joshua more than he makes out in the recent interview. Still, those fans who did see Joshua as a clear winner over Martin might be more inclined to fork out the pay-per-view fee to see if Fury is right in predicting a much tougher test for the unbeaten star. Fury might have added a few buyers to the fight.