Negotiations have restarted between Anthony Joshua and WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury for September in the UK.
The Joshua-Fury talks started this week for a fight in September. If the fight occurs, the two are still expected to participate in a card in December in Saudi Arabia, which will be challenging to do given the fast turnaround.
Fury is all over the place, talking bout wanting to fight fringe contender Demsey McKean in Australia and Andy Ruiz Jr. Neither of those fights have occurred. Now, AJ is the next name that is being floated as a Fury opponent.
Mike Coppinger of ESPN reports the revived negotiations between the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs).
Tyson Fury confirms negotiations on Instagram
“A few days ago, I sent a draft contract to Anthony Joshua for a fight in September at Wembley Stadium. It’s a fight that everyone wants to see, including myself. Come on, AJ, let’s give the world 🌎 what they want to see. This time I’m not going to make a million videos & keep putting pressure on. The ball is now on your side,” said Tyson Fury on Instagram today.
If you’re Joshua, it’s not a good investment in time to try and set up a fight with Fury because the odds of the two agreeing are slim.
Moreover, Fury’s popularity has plummeted in the last two years, with many fans feeling that he ducked Usyk and isn’t interested in fighting high-level opposition after making a lot of money in the last three years.
Fury (33-1-1, 24 KO) wants to finalize the Joshua fight for September before fighting unified champion Oleksandr Usyk in December. With Fury’s recent poor track record of setting up fights, he’ll probably fail to negotiate either of those fights.
The two attempted to set up a fight last year, spending many months trying to bang out a deal. Still, in the end, Fury fought his good friend journeyman Derek Chisora last December, while Joshua sat inactive until fighting Jermaine Franklin last April.
Joshua is in talks to fight former WBC champion Deontay Wilder in December. That match has a more realistic chance of happening for AJ than one against Fury, which has become increasingly more difficult to negotiate with since defeating Wilder for the first time in 2020.
Winning the WBC title has hurt Fury’s career, making him hard to negotiate with.
For weeks, talks have been ongoing for an ambitious two-fight card in Saudi Arabia in December that would feature Fury vs. Usyk and Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder. That heavyweight doubleheader is still being explored, sources said.
But Fury is eager to finalize his first fight of… https://t.co/rQri4ufbrZ
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) May 26, 2023
It’s good for Fury to use Joshua’s name to build interest in a summer fight against another lower-level heavyweight. In Fury’s last two fights, he’s beaten shot British fighters Dillian Whyte and Chisora.
The Saudi rep recently said it wouldn’t be interesting if one of the fighters being considered for the big December card were beaten before that event. If you’re Joshua, he should forget about Fury and focus on the Wilder fight in December because the chances of him losing to Tyson would be high.