Top Rank promoter Bob Arum revealed today that Tyson Fury would wait and see the outcome of the Anthony Joshua vs. Oleksandr Usyk II rematch on July 23rd before deciding whether to continue his career or retire.
Arum says that other than fighting the Joshua or Usyk, no one else in the heavyweight division interests the undefeated Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs) to keep him in the sport.
In the last three years, fury, 33, has made millions with his fights against Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte. The only thing left for the 6’9″ Fury is to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship against whoever emerges as the winner of the Joshua-Usyk II rematch on July 23rd.
Some boxing fans believe Fury will choose to retire if Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) defeats Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) because he’s the lousy style match-up.
We’ll have to see if the fans are correct, considering there’s an excellent chance that Joshua will lose the rematch with Usyk.
“Fury is going to wait until the Joshua fight comes out with Usyk, and then he’ll make a determination if he wants to continue,” said Bob Arum to Fighthype.
“Other than fighting the winner of Joshua vs. Usyk, there’s really nothing there of interest to Tyson Fury, so we’ll have to see,” Arum said.
Making a lot of money in a short period has seemingly taken away Fury’s ambition to keep striving. We saw the same thing with Andy Ruiz Jr, who has fought only once since making millions in his rematch with Joshua in 2019.
It takes a rare breed of person to keep working hard after becoming wealthy, and Fury isn’t one of those types of people.
During the build-up for Fury’s last fight against Whyte on April 23rd, he repeatedly told the media that he planned on retiring once he got this match out of the way.
After winning the contest by an easy sixth-round knockout, Fury brought UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou into the ring and announced to the fans that he would be fighting him in an exhibition match soon.
Fury then said he would only be doing exhibition and WWE events from this point forward. It was more than a little disappointing for fans to hear Fury choose to retire without sticking around to fight the winner of the Joshua vs. Usyk 2 fight, but it affirmed in the minds of some that he’s not confident about beating either of them.
