Tyson Fury says Anthony Joshua fight must happen

By Boxing News - 06/14/2017 - Comments

Image: Tyson Fury says Anthony Joshua fight must happen

By Jeff Aranow: Ring heavyweight champion Tyson Fury took to social media to call out IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua today for a fight. Fury, who hasn’t fought since 2015, says Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) needs him. Fury feels that the two of them can “make boxing great again” if they fight each other.

Fury says he doesn’t see Joshua as being in the same class as him in terms of talent. Fury views Joshua as the biggest challenge for him in boxing. Fury also says he’s interested in fighting Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker and Alexander Povetkin. Fury wants to face the best heavyweights in the sport today once he makes his comeback.

Of course, a fight between Joshua and Fury could also give boxing a black eye if it turns out to be a mismatch. Fury needs to be talking about taking some tune-up fights to get ready for a fight with Joshua. I don’t think it’s fair to Joshua, himself or the boxing fans that Fury is chomping at the bit to get back into the ring straightaway for a fight with Joshua. Fury needs to take at least one tune-up, preferably 3 to get ready for a fight against Joshua.

Fury still doesn’t have his boxing license. He needs to get that from the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) in the UK. It’s unclear what progress has been made on that end by Fury. I believe it’s going to be a really complicated for Fury to get his boxing license back due to all the stuff that BBBofC will need to go through. Fury needs to get the UKAD business taken care of as well.

Here’s what the 6’9” Tyson Fury said on his social media site in calling out Anthony Joshua:

”You need to fight me because at the moment I’m still lineal champ,” said Fury. ”I’ve been out of boxing nearly 2 years so that should make it fair on the others. I really don’t believe that AJ can lace my boots up; I want to come back and see how good I am even with the time out. Me vs. AJ [Anthony Joshuais the biggest fight in boxing without a doubt. If this fight isn’t made it will be like Lennox Lewis & Riddick Bowe. Now there are new challenges. I can motivate myself again. [Deontay] Wilder & Aj [Joshua] & [Joseph] Parker even [Alexander] Povetkin theses are the fights I want. Let’s make this happen. Let’s make boxing great again.🙏🏻😎”

If nothing else, Fury is doing a magnificent job of keeping his name alive in the boxing world by taking to Twitter and Instagram to get his name out there. It’s unclear how much longer the fans will pay attention to Fury if he’s not making any headway towards getting back into the ring in order for him to resume his career. So far, Fury is being taken seriously by the boxing public when he talks of wanting to return to action. But if Fury isn’t back in the ring in a year or 2, his social media posts might get attention from fans, as he’s slowly seen as someone blabbering in the background without any intent on actually fighting.

Joshua says he’s game for a fight with Fury, but he wants him to lose weight and get ready for a fight between them.

Right now, it doesn’t look like Fury is in good enough shape to play a game of golf, let alone get inside a boxing ring to start throwing punches. I think it would be a REALLY bad idea for Fury and Joshua to fight right now, given Fury’s physical condition with him being so out of shape and fat.

“I don’t think Tyson can lace his own boots at the minute! When Tyson is fit, when he’s ready, we’ll be ready,” said Joshua to Sky Sports News HQ. “We’re patient. I wish him a speedy recovery with all the stuff that he’s got going on outside the ring.”

The British boxing public would gladly pay to see Fury and Joshua face each other inside the ring. I don’t think it matters if Fury is in shape or not. The fans will greedily scoop up the tickets by the bucketful as soon as they go on sale. However, I don’t think it’s going to be a good fight for the fans.

Without Fury losing all the weight that he’s packed on in the last couple of years with his inactivity, it’s a losing proposition for the boxing public if he doesn’t make his comeback the right way by burning the weight off slowly and getting in top shape. As I already mentioned, Fury needs to take some tune-up fights once he gets ready, because Joshua has been busy the last 2 years of his career while Fury has been out of the ring.

During the 2 years that Fury has been out of the ring, Joshua has fought 5 times against these heavyweights:

– Dillian Whyte

– Charles Martin

– Dominic Breazeale

– Eric Molina

– Wladimir Klitschko

I think all 5 of those heavyweights would give Fury all kinds of problems right now if he were to make his way back into the ring against them without losing all the weight he’s put on. Even if Fury does take the weight off successfully, I think he would struggle against those heavyweights. When you’ve been out of the ring for as long as Fury, you needs to make up for lost time by taking your time by fighting lower level guys and building your way back to the top fighters when you come back. Unfortunately, a lot of fighters in boxing choose to jump right to the top of the pack when they come off years of inactivity.

It’s usually a disaster for them. We saw that recently with Klitschko with him coming off a 2-year layoff to fight Joshua on April 29. It’s a fight that Wladimir might have won if he’s taken the proper tune-up to get ready for the fight. Instead, he treated like it was a cash out fight with him going straight into the fight without taking a few warm-up fights.

The 41-year-old Klitschko felt that he didn’t need any warm up fights to get him ready for Joshua. Wladimir ended up losing the fight by an 11th round knockout. You can blame the loss on poor decision making on Wladimir’s part not to try and knock Joshua out after he had him hurt and gassed out in the 6th, but also because of his failure to take some tune-up fights to get ready.

“It’s a fight that people want to see. He’s one of my boxing rivals and I need this competition throughout my career,” said Joshua about the Fury match. ”I can’t wait for him to get back. We’ll see if I can lace his boots when we come to blows.”

Fury previously held the IBF and WBA heavyweight titles that are now in Joshua’s possession. He says he wants to win those titles back. Ring Magazine still has Fury as their Ring heavyweight champion despite his nearly 2 years out of the ring. They’re supposed to strip Fury of his title due to him not having scheduled a fight in his weight class in the past 18 months. It’s unclear why Fury is still the Ring champion.

The fans definitely want to see Joshua and Fury go at it. Will they still want to if Fury stays out of the ring for another 2 years? At some point it becomes tiresome to hear a fighter talk about wanting to get back in the ring, but then he never does. We have countless examples of fighters that have walked away from the sport of boxing who like to speak about this or that fighter, but without them ever returning to the ring. Floyd Mayweather Jr. often name drops Gennady Golovkin’s name. But we still haven’t see Mayweather fight him, and it doesn’t look like he ever will.