Joshua willing to fight Fury even if he’s 40 stone

By Boxing News - 10/24/2017 - Comments

Image: Joshua willing to fight Fury even if he’s 40 stone

By Juan Flores: In a sign of how desperate IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) is to fight former unified heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs), he says he would be willing to fight the 29-year-old even if he weighed 40 stone, which is 560 lbs. Joshua says he’d fight Fury if he can move around the ring, because the boxing fans would be still willing to watch the two of them.

(Photo credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)

Fury is still in need of a boxing license to fight for him to be able to consider a big money fight against Joshua. But it’s very likely the moment Fury gets his license back in the future, he’ll be looking to sign for a fight with Joshua. It’s generally understood by a lot of hardcore fans that Fury will be coming back for a cash out fight with Joshua before he likely disappears again for another long absence from the ring. Fury’s last fight came against Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015.

Joshua points out that former heavyweight champion George Foreman weighed in the 300 lb. range when he made a comeback in the late 1980s. In his prime, Foreman weighed 217 lbs. When he returned to the ring at age 39, he was far with a pot belly, and nowhere near as good as he was in his youth. Foreman never did lose the weight. He did melt down to 253 at one point, but he still looked fat. As far as Fury’s boxing license goes, he’s going to get his license back at some point. Just how long it’ll take for the 6’9” fighter to get it back is the big question.

“What was his fighting weight, 18 stone? Even if he comes back at 22 stone, George Foreman came back bigger than he was in his prime,” Joshua said. “If he wants to fight and gets his license at 30 stone, 40 stone and wants to get in the ring and starts showing that he can move about and he can control that weight that he’s morphed into, people will watch him,” said Joshua in letting the boxing media know that he’ll fight Fury under almost any condition.

It sounds bad that Joshua has no qualms about fighting Fury with him being potentially grossly obese. That suggests that Joshua is only thing about the bottom line of him getting as big a payday as he can rather than on the giving the fans a great fight. It would be nice if Joshua were thinking about the boxing fans first and foremost to make sure that they’re given the best fight possible. It’s rather disturbing that Joshua would be willing to fight Fury with hi over 500 lbs.

Let’s break this down so that the U.S boxing fans have a good idea of what Joshua is saying when he says he would be open to fighting Fury at 22, 30 and 40 stone:

22 stone = 308 lbs.

30 stone = 420 lbs.

40 stone = 560 lbs.

That’s just sad that Joshua would be willing fight Fury at those kinds of weights. With all the money that Joshua has already made in his short 4-year pro career, why would there be such an urgency to fight Fury at all costs with him being badly overweight? Joshua should have higher stands than that. I know Joshua has had a lot of terrible mismatches against guys like Eric Molina, Kevin Johnson, Gary Cornish and Jason Gavern. Joshua can do better than fighting Fury with him being as big as a house.

Hopefully Joshua was just kidding about him being willing to Fury if he were fat, because he’s going to lose a lot of boxing fans if he starts taking on out of shape fighters just so he can get a payday against them. If Joshua is going to fight Fury, he should make sure that he comes into the fight in good condition. That means if Fury is weighing in the 400+ lb. range right now, then Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn needs to give him 1 year to burn to the fat off before facing him, because Fury isn’t going to be able to lose 150 lbs. in one 8-week training camp. Fury might be able to put a small dent in the 150bs, but he’s not going to lose nearly enough of the weight for him to get down to his old fighting weight of 250 lbs.

To lose that kind of weight, Fury would need at least 8 months of nonstop training to get ready for the fight. Even then, Fury would likely be badly weakened from having taken that kind of fat off. What Fury needs is a year of training along with 4 or 5 tune-up fights to get him ready for the Joshua contest. It’s got to be a lot of tune-ups for him to have a chance, because he’s been out of boxing for 2 years now, and he’s obviously not been living a Spartan lifestyle during that time.

“But if he comes back at that weight and he’s getting in trouble against journeymen, then people won’t be interested. So it’s how he performs at his new weight,” said Joshua.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is more concerned with seeing Fury perform and look good in his tune-up fights before he would consider matching Joshua against him. Hearn sees the big picture in wanting Joshua to be seen fighting guys that are in good physical condition. The reason it’s important that Joshua only face guys in great condition is because the boxing public is going to feel ripped off if Fury comes into the fight weighing 400 to 500 lbs. and unable to defend himself due to the massive amount of weight that he’s put on.

Joshua will be defending his IBF, WBA heavyweight titles this Saturday night against Carlos (35-3-1, 27 KOs) at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Takam, 36, is a replacement for the injured mandatory challenger Kubrat Pule, who pulled out of the fight just 2 weeks ago with a bad right shoulder injury. Joshua is not sweating bullets that he’s fighting a difficult fighter like Takam on just 2 weeks. Joshua figures he’s got it in the bag in fighting Takam. Joshua has gotten kind of cocky with his 19 wins as a pro. We’ll see if Takam can knock that cockiness out of Joshua on Saturday and bring him down to earth to make him a little more humble.