By Scott Gilfoid: On Friday in Monaco, a very heavy looking Tyson Fury said he’ll be ready to fight Anthony Joshua by next summer in a mega-clash at Wembley Stadium in London, UK.
Fury says he can’t take the fight with Joshua before next summer, because he’ll still be too fat at that point. Fury showed off his physique on Friday in Monaco, and he still looks very fat. At one point, Fury grabbed his midsection and showed off his flab to Dereck Chisora.
Fury then stood and gave Chisora and the boxing media a profile shot of how heavy he is. There was quite a bit of extra flab on Fury’s midsection that will need to be trimmed off before he can fight Joshua in 2018. That kind of weight isn’t going to come off easily. It’s going to take some serious hard work from Fury. If he loses the weight too quickly, he’ll have tons of skin hanging off his sides.
”Fat as a pig, hairy as an animal, but still as hungry as a lion,” Fury said to skysports.com in describing himself. “You have two years out of the ring and it gives you that va-va-voom to get back in there and bust a few heads.”
There’s going to be a lot of angry British boxing fans if Fury is less than top shape for the Joshua fight next summer. I mean, if Fury waddles out into center ring and keels over from the first jab Joshua throws, the fans are going to be hopping mad at the farce. That’s why it’s in promoter Eddie Hearn’s best interest not to make the Joshua-Fury fight until later on in 2018 in December.
Fury won’t have nearly enough time to lose all the weight he’s put on and fight 2 or 3 tune-up bouts by the time he faces Joshua next summer. Fury can do whatever he wants, but I don’t think it’ll end well for him, Joshua and Hearn if they fight next summer. It appears that Fury is looking to get a big payday in the Joshua fight, and then retire for another 2 years to eat well and live a life of leisure. There’s nothing wrong with living well, but it’ll be bad if Fury’s goal for his fight with Joshua is to cash out on that fight.
Fury was a motivated fighter before he fought Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. The big time money Fury made in that fight seemed to take away his drive to continue fighting. It’s that way sometimes with athletes. After they make a lot of money, they get fat, lazy and stop training like they did before. It’s not just with boxers. You get athletes doing this in all sports.
It just seems like it’s more prevalent in boxing due to there being so few big stars in the sport. When one of the few big names decides to stay out of the ring and get fat, the boxing fans see this and they talk. With the kind of money that Fury will make fighting Joshua, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll still be motivated to continue fighting afterwards.
Look at UFC Conor McGregor. After he made $100 million fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. last August, he still hasn’t returned to his MMA sport like he said he was going to do. Instead, McGregor is yapping about wanting to fight Mayweather in a rematch. McGregor clearly isn’t motivated like he was before he got the big $100 million payday.
Fury vs. Joshua would easily be the biggest fight in British boxing history. There’s nothing that can compare to it in terms of money. Fury and Joshua will make a killing when it comes to the big time cash they’ll both make in that fight. There’s a lot of money there to be made by both guys.
”I think next summer is ideal and realistic. I’m not going to do it in February or March, because obviously I’m not in shape. But I’ll be back in shape by the time March, April comes around,” said Fury.
Well, if Fury is planning on fighting Joshua next July, then he’s going to need to start working on losing some of that weight soon if he doesn’t want to be forced to go on a starvation diet. If Fury starts training right now, he can probably burn off 100 lbs. of fat by next July. It’s unclear how overweight Fury is.
A conservative estimate would be Fury needing to lose 100 lbs. to get down to his old fighting weight of 250 lbs. If Fury starts training right now and losing approximately 12.5 lbs. per month, he’ll be back down to 250 lbs. by July. That’s still a ton of weight to lose each month. 12 ½ lbs. per month is heck of a lot of weight. I don’t know if Fury will be able to take that kind of weight off that quickly. That’s why it would be smarter if Fury chose to make the fight with Joshua in December of next year. If Fury gives himself a little over a year to lose the weight, he should get down to 250 lbs. without any problems, and he won’t be weak like he would if he rushes to lose the weight.
Fury needs to find out what the ruling will be for the UK Anti-Doping agency for them to give him the green light to continue fighting. The British Boxing Board of Control also needs to clear Fury to fight again by giving him his boxing license back.
