By Scott Gilfoid: Normally it’s kind of frowned upon for fighters to discuss what took place during sparring sessions, which is why it seems very strange that IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has decided to start talking about a sparring session that took place between him and Tyson Fury many years ago when Joshua was just an amateur and Fury a young pro in 2009.
Fury was all of 20 back then, and Joshua still a teenager. Joshua says the two of them fought in a war during the sparring sessions. He doesn’t say who got the better of who, but he does admit that he couldn’t KO Fury, and that seems to have been something he was looking to do.
“I just got my head guard on, gum shield in, and we just cracked on,” said Joshua to skysports.com. “Me and him just had a straight war. What I learned about Fury is, we’ve got the same heart. We’re both fighting people and we go to war. I didn’t manage to knock him out. We both hit each other with some big shots, powerful shots.”
Even if Joshua had knocked out Fury, big deal. It’s not as if Fury has a rep for having one of the best chins in the sport or the most punching power. The only thing Joshua would prove in putting Fury down is that he could accomplish the same thing that the 210lb Steve Cunningham was able to do. Putting Fury down and keeping him down would be a problem for Joshua because he’s slow on his feet and needs his opponents to do stupid things like not throw punches or backup against the ropes in sparring partner mode so that he can throw his flurries of arm shots.
I think Fury is a badly flawed fighter, but I’ve never seen him go into sparring partner mode by just hanging on the ropes in a senseless manner. Fury throws punches and doesn’t just stand there waiting to be clocked like we saw with Charles Martin in his fight against Joshua recently. Fury also doesn’t have a shoulder problem like we saw with Joshua’s opponent Dillian Whyte in their fight last December.
“Years ago he predicted ‘watch out for the kid, he’ll be heavyweight champion of the world one day’ and he got his prediction right,” said Joshua.
Look at that; Joshua is talking about himself like he’s already been around for a long time and achieved a great deal. The last time I checked, Joshua had beaten a handful of journeyman, an injured Dillian Whyte and a paper champion in Charles Martin during his pro career. I mean, we’re still waiting for Joshua to fight his first quality heavyweight, and we’ll still be waiting after he defends his IBF title next month against the unbeaten Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) on June 25 at the O2 arena in London, UK.
We’re not going to find out how good Joshua is until he fights the talents in the heavyweight division like Deontay Wilder and Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz. If Joshua never fights either of those guys, then you won’t be able to say much about him other than he was a champion that failed to fight the best guys in the division to find out how good he is.
Instead of blabbing about what took place during a sparring session seven years ago with Fury, Joshua should be working on trimming down on some of that useless muscle he’s packed on since turning pro so that he can find some hand speed and mobility. Goodness knows, Joshua is going to need those assets when he finally steps it up one of these days against the likes of Deontay and Ortiz, if he ever doe s step it up against those talents.
Instead of yaking his head off about what did or didn’t happen during a sparring session 2,500 yesterdays ago, Joshua should be working on his game. The last thing Joshua needs is to be lost in reverie thinking about the good old days when he was sparring Fury, when he gets into the ring with Breazeale next month. If Joshua isn’t engaged mentally with the present time, he could get his head knocked off by Breazeale. I mean, the American fighter may be flawed as heck, but he can punch a little. Look what he did to Amir Mansour, a fighter with better punching power than Joshua.
*** Fury update ***
Fury says he was pounded by a light heavyweight from Belgium this week and knocked down three times during the session. I’m not sure why Fury brought a 175lb fighter to training camp to get him ready for his rematch against the 6’6” Wladimir Klitschko on July 9 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. It looks like it was a mistake on Fury’s part to let the light heavyweight use 10oz gloves because he really worked Fury over from the looks of it. Fury suffered a black eye and an abrasion on his forehead.