Before Anthony Joshua lost the belts against Oleksandr Usyk, the fight everybody wanted to see at Heavyweight was him against Tyson Fury. An all-British affair that would’ve been one of the most watched fights in boxing history with potential to become a trilogy.
It didn’t get much better than that but AJ messed it up by losing against Andy Ruiz first and then losing for a second time against Oleksandr Usyk. Those four fights alone made Tyson Fury lose interest in a potential matchup against him.
But for promoter Eddie Hearn, there is still no better fight than that one. Perhaps Joshua vs Deontay Wilder would also be extremely entertaining but Fury is the biggest box office draw.
During a recent interview in iFL TV, Hearn said, “I’m telling you, and I’m saying it with a big chest and all my heart and now all my brain, Anthony Joshua beats Tyson Fury everyday of the week. He knocks him spark out. And you can go around and you can say, ‘He’s frozen out, he’s a dosser, I’m a dosser.’ We saw Saturday night-we know the weaknesses. There (pointing to head) and there (pointing to chin), it ain’t what it used to be. Make the fight. AJ against Fury. You better go and beat Usyk, because you do, you have to make the AJ fight. You cannot retire without fighting Anthony Joshua. But he’ll do the job for you because he’ll put you into retirement. I promise you that.”
At 34-0-1, Tyson Fury is one of the few boxers in the world whohas never lost a fight while AJ has that 26-3 record. Eddie Hearn knows that Tyson Fury would need beat Oleksandr Usyl in order to make that other fight happen. Judging on how much Tyson struggled against Francis Ngannou, perhaps the Ukrainian won’t be as easy to beat as everybody thought. We won’t know if this fight will be possible until February, 2024. Initially, Fury vs Usyk was slated for December but Tyson needs to recover from the beating he took while fighting Ngannou.