Just who will Tyson Fury fight next? The deadline for Anthony Joshua to accept the fight with Fury – on either November 26, or December 3 – came and went yesterday, and nothing has happened. Will Fury now face a TBA in December, possibly a guy like Manuel Charr? If so, who will Joshua fight next? It’s all up in the air right now. It sure doesn’t look like we will get a Fury-Joshua clash, not this year.
And rival heavyweight ruler Oleksandr Usyk, who has said all along, since his repeat win over AJ, that he will be ready to fight Fury next year in what would be a massive unification showdown, is still hoping to get the fight. But does Fury want it? Egis Klimas, manager of the WBA/IBF/WBO heavyweight champ, has fired some harsh words at Fury on social media, stating how the WBC champ is “running” from Usyk by calling for a fight with Joshua.
“This is an excellent way to run from Usyk,” Klimas writes. “Calling out others but not answering Usyk. JOKE!”
Fury has previously said he will fight Usyk, but only if he’s paid the staggering feel of £500 million, before he then changed targets and began relentlessly calling out and taunting Joshua. We fans would certainly take a Fury-Joshua fight, but we want to see the Fury-Usyk fight just as much, if not more. Surely Fury will fight at least one of these two guys?
Right now, things have gone strangely quiet. Fury’s deadline demands were not met by Joshua, yet Fury has not announced what his plans are now. Neither has Joshua announced, well, anything. Frank Warren said this week that Fury WILL fight this year, in the UK. Now that it’s looking all the more likely that it will not be Joshua in the other corner when Fury does fight next, we are left wondering who it might be.
As has been pointed out, all the top heavyweights are either busy, have just fought, or are otherwise unavailable – with Usyk out until next year, Joshua not agreeing to fight Fury, Deontay Wilder busy with the Robert Helenius fight, Joe Parker and Joe Joyce fighting each other, Andy Ruiz and Luis Ortiz having just fought each other, Filip Hrgovic and Zhilei Zhang having punched lumps out of each other, and with Fury having already beaten Dillian Whyte.
Looking at the Ring Magazine heavyweight Top-10, that leaves just Frank Sanchez currently available. Might Fury fight the unbeaten Cuban? It seems doubtful. One other name that has been mentioned as far as Fury’s next fight, is Michael Bakole, yet this is nothing but rumour at this point.
December isn’t that far away, though, and if he is going to fight then, and if it isn’t going to be against AJ, Fury needs to find a challenger ASAP. Manuel Charr, believe it or not, could well be the frontrunner right now.
