By Juan Flores: If things go as he hopes, promoter Eddie Hearn will be putting together a big money fight between IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (20-0, 0 KOs) and former unified champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) in 2018.
That’s the fight that Hearn wants more than anything. Hearn put together a list of 3 fighters that he told the boxing media that he wants to match against Joshua in 2018, and those 3 are the following: Joseph Parker, Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.
If Fury, 29, makes a comeback next year, Hearn says he wants to put together than Joshua-Fury fight after he’s had 1 or 2 tune-up fights to get the rust out. Fury hasn’t fought in 23 months since his 12 round unanimous decision win over Wladimir Klitschko on November 28, 2015. Fury has been out of the ring dealing with personal problems, as well as from a positive drug test.
“I think the Wilder fight is potentially one of the biggest in world boxing and I think that fight is realistically going to happen in the summer of 2018,” Hearn said to the BBC Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek. “But Tyson Fury is a guy who we’d love to see come into the sport. Whether that’ll happen or not is another issue. The problem for him is to overcome the governing body and UK Anti-Doping,” said Hearn.
Joshua beat challenger Carlos Takam last Saturday night in getting a 10th round TKO at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Joshua suffered a broken nose from a clash of heads with Takam early in the fight in round 2. The injury will keep Joshua out of the ring until early next year. When Joshua does come back, Hearn will likely match him against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker.
Hearn says he wants to make the fight between Joshua and Wilder in the summer of next year, as long as Wilder has done his part of building it up by facing and defeating Matchroom Sport fighter Dillian Whyte.
Fury has a meeting with the UK Anti-Doping board in July to decide whether he’s going to be allowed to resume his boxing career. If so, then Fury will need the British Boxing Board of Control to give him back his license to fight. After that, you can expect Hearn to quickly try and put together a contract for a fight between Fury and Joshua. Hearn says he’d like to have Fury take 1 or 2 fights.
As anxious as Hearn is in making the Fury-Joshua fight, it’s quite possible that he’ll negotiate a fight between them after Fury takes just 1 tune-up fight. The big problem with Fury only fighting once before he aces Joshua is that he’ll be likely still overweight, and not nearly sharp enough to give the British boxing public an entertaining fight. It’s not just Fury being out of the ring or 2 years that is going to hurt his performance when he resumes his career.
It’s Fury’s style of living that he’s had since he stopped fighting in November 2015. Fury has put on a lot of weight, and it’s going to be very hard for him to take all that weight off. There has been talk that Fury is in the 350 pound region, and maybe even higher. Fury will need to lose that weight for him to be able to fight at a high level when he does come back. Fury won’t be able to fight effectively if he’s tipping the scales at 300+ lbs. in 2018. Surely, Hearn won’t want any part of making a fight between a fat Tyson Fury and Joshua, because the outcome will anger a lot of the boxing fans that purchase the Joshua-Fury fight in 2018.
“I think he will come back. I think at some point he will wake up one morning and think, ‘I’ve got to get myself together here’ and go challenge in these big fights,” said Hearn.
Fury isn’t being held back from resuming his pro career on his own accord. Fury is waiting for him to be allowed to resume his boxing career by the UK Anti-Doping committee voting to let him resume his career or not. There’s also the British Boxing Board of Control (BBB of C) that Fury needs for him to get permission to resume his career. Those are the major hurdles that Fury needs to get out of the way.
Once Fury has his boxing license back, it’s only a matter of him losing between 100 t0 150 pounds of excess weight so that he can give himself the best chance to succeed. Fury and Hearn are likely going to be in a really big hurry to make the fight with Joshua, so it’s probable that Fury will still be ring rusty and overweight when the fight gets made. Hearn likely won’ try and push Fury to take a bunch of tune-ups before he makes the Joshua-Fury fight, because of the British boxing public being so excited about seeing the match-up.
Fury doesn’t need to do anything to build the Joshua fight up other than turning up for the press conferences, talking a lot of trash in interviews, and show up on the night for the fight. The fans will purchase the Joshua-Fury fight on Sky Box Office regardless of whether Fury takes a bunch of tune-up fights or not. It’s one of the few big fights out there for the 27-year-old Joshua right now.
There’s Fury, Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker, Dillian Whyte and Jarrell Miller. After that, if Joshua is still unbeaten, then we’re probably going to be looking at him fighting Luis Ortiz, Alexander Povetkin, Joe Joyce, Dereck Chisora and Hughie Fury. Young prospects like Daniel Dubois and Tony Yoka will need at least 2-3 years before they’ll be ready to fight Joshua. The Fury fight will be ready by next year if he can get cleared to fight, and if he loses all the weight that he’s put on. Those are some big ifs though, because that’s a lot of hurdles that Fury will need to jump over for him to fight Joshua and do well.
“If he does, with one or two fights, then I’d love to see the Anthony Joshua fight and I’d like to see it in 2018,” said Hearn.
Hearn has everything mapped out with Joshua’s fights in 2018. He wants Joshua to win the last 2 heavyweight world titles not in his possession with the WBC and WBO belts held by Wilder and Parker. If Joshua grabs both of those titles, then it’s going to be all about him defending against all comers at that point. Hearn will be trying to find the best fights available to them. With Joshua holding down 4 titles, he’s going to be in the same position that Wladimir Klitschko was in when he held 3 of the heavyweight titles.
Wladimir was suck being forced to take a lot of easy title defenses the lackluster mandatory challengers that the sanctioning bodies would pick out for him to fight. Wladimir had to take a lot of easy fights that did nothing to increase his popularity. Now it’s about to be Joshua’s turn once he wins the WBC and WBO titles. Joshua will need to fight a lot of mandatory challenger for as long as he holds the titles. At some point, Joshua needs considering vacating the titles and just focus on taking the biggest money fights he can get.