Tyson Fury, the lineal world heavyweight champion, is still angry at the way the IBF declared their belt vacant just days after he had won it by beating Wladimir Klitschko in a big upset last November. Fury, unable to defend the strap as quickly as the organisation demanded, watched as Charles Martin became the new IBF ruler, subsequently losing it in double-quick time to Anthony Joshua.
Joshua, who makes his own first defence this Saturday night against Dominic Breazeale, wants a big fight with Fury (providing Fury can repeat his win or Klitschko next month) – but Fury told The Mail that he will not fight for the IBF belt, not ever again.
“That belt is worthless,” Fury said. “I will never fight for it again. There is history between me and the IBF. They messed me about before and I will never pay them another sanctioning fee. Me and Joshua is massive. But if we fight it won’t be for his belt. I will not give them the fee. When I beat him I will keep my titles but the IBF belt will fall vacant. It counts for nothing. Joshua is a paper champion.”
Fury is confident he would defeat Joshua, and he is just as sure that Joshua will easily do away with Breazeale on Saturday. Not that Fury will be impressed by a quick victory by A.J.
“Another knock-over,” is what Fury is predicting for Joshua. “They’re [Joshua’s recent opponents] just big old lumps who can’t make it in basketball so they turn to boxing. They’re just doing it for the pay-cheque. They come over here and like Martin they’re looking for the canvas and go down from the first jab. There are heavyweights out there with granite chins who you can’t knock over with a sledgehammer. He should be fighting real fighters like that. With what he’s fighting Joshua is not a true champion.”
It’s hard to disagree with Fury here. Joshua will have proved nothing with a demolition job on Breazeale, let’s be honest. We all hope Breazeale puts up a better fight than Martin did, but another quick A.J win is highly possible. Fury is the real champion, like it or not, and he will be an even more proven one if he can defeat Klitschko for a second time on July 9.
Then it could be a massive fight with Joshua (minus the IBF belt of course!). This fight will tell us a whole lot more about Joshua, maybe about Fury too.