By Jeff Aranow: Tyson Fury will be back inside the ring in April of next year, according to his trainer Peter Fury, but they’re admittedly worried that his target opponent heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) could get beaten before he gets a chance to fight him in 2018.
Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) wants to be the guy that hands the 27-year-old Joshua his first loss of his career. With Joshua looking more vulnerable with each fight, the odds of him still being unbeaten seem unlikely. Joshua will likely be facing WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder next year before he fights Fury.
If Wilder can knockout Joshua, it will take away a lot of the interest in a Joshua-Fury fight from the boxing public. Joshua will be a tainted fighter when/if Wilder knocks him out. Joshua is already being view as a flawed and vulnerable fighter by many hardcore boxing fans, who no longer see him as this invincible heavyweight that will carry the heavyweight division for the next 10 years. Joshua now looks more like a heavyweight that is on the verge of losing, and perhaps losing badly to Wilder.
“I think April of next year,” Peter Fury said to the BBC in talking about Tyson Fury’s return to the boxing ring. “The only fear is that Joshua doesn’t get beat beforehand. That’s the fight the public want to see, that’s the fight Tyson really wants. And he really thinks that’s the fight that should be made.”
Fury still must be cleared to resume his career by the UK Anti-Doping agency. There expected to decide his case soon. It’s difficult to imagine the agency not approving Fury to be allowed to continue fighting, as it’s already been 2 years since he last fought. It’s almost unheard of for a fighter to be kept out of the ring for that long after they’ve tested positive for a banned substance.
The biggest problem that Fury has is taking off the weight that he’s put on during his 2 years of inactivity. Fury must get down to his fighting weight of 250, and he’ll need to get his conditioning back. Some boxing fans doubt that he’ll be able to do it. Fury get his skills back, and the only way for him to do that is to get three or four fights under his belt before he faces Joshua.
The way the Joshua fight is being talked about, it’s possible Fury will be rushed into the match before he’s physically ready. One would hope that wouldn’t be the case, because it would mentally hurt him if he gets beaten soundly by Joshua. Ideally, Fury should use 2018 to fighting as often as possible to get his boxing skills back.
Fury could then face Joshua in early 2019 in top shape and ready to give him all he can handle. That would be the smart way of going into a fight with Joshua, but it doesn’t seem that Fury wants to take his time in easing himself back into the game. He’s interested in facing Joshua as soon as possible. Not surprisingly, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants the Joshua-Fury fight to take place in 2018, because it makes his fighter a lot of money. It helps Joshua that Fury will be rusty when he faces him in 2018.