By Scott Gilfoid: Tyson Fury says he’s disappointed that Anthony Joshua is avoiding a unification fight against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Fury says he could fight Wilder in the U.S, and he thinks it would be a huge accomplishment if he beat him on his own soil. Wilder has never been beaten before. Fury wants to be a road warrior like he was when he defeated Wladimir Klitschko in Germany in 2015.
Fury feels that if IBF, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) won’t agree to fight Wilder for $40 million on April 13, then he won’t agree no matter how much money is offered to him.
For the record, Wilder’s management is said to have offered Joshua a cool $50 million, which he turned down. Joshua would have likely had to give up home country advantage and take the fight with Wilder in the U.S for him to get the $50 million. Wilder’s management weren’t going to give AJ that kind of money without any strings attached. Joshua obviously didn’t want those strings attached, and some believe he simply didn’t fancy the fight against Deontay. What better way to not fight Wilder than to reject his $50 million and then have his promoter Eddie Hearn offer him a fraction of that price at $15 million, which would be a flat fee.
”Such a sad time for heavyweight boxing, because you got the so-called super champion golden boy in Anthony Joshua and he is avoiding Deontay Wilder and will not fight him at any cost,” Tyson Fury said about Joshua on his Instagram.
Fury brings up a good point about this being a sad time for heavyweight boxing. Joshua turning down $50 million for a fight against Wilder is worse than shocking. It’s just incredible. Can you imagine superstar heavyweights from the past like Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis turning down $50 million for a fight? It’s unheard of. I don’t think we’ll ever see something like this ever again in the sport of boxing. Fighters, even the popular ones, won’t turn down huge offers for that type of money.
”If you’re not going to fight him for $40 million, you’re not going to fight him for anything. It’s a disgrace and it’s a disgrace to boxing,” Fury said about Joshua.
Well, with the $15 million flat fee offer that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn offered Wilder for the April 13 fight at Wembley Stadium, if he was to agree to that money, it would leave Joshua with a potential payday that could well eclipse the $50 million that Deontay’s management offered him. It’s bad for boxing that Joshua simply didn’t agree to the $50 million for the Wilder fight, but when you think about the $15 million offer Hearn is offering him for the fight, Joshua could well make over $80 million if the fight brings in $100 million. It would be clever of Joshua and Hearn to get Wilder to agree to just $15 million without any chances to improve on that sum depending on the gross of the fight. That’s why it would only make sense for Wilder to agree to the fight with Joshua if he’s given a percentage deal. If Wilder accepts the flat fee offer by Hearn, he might be furious later on when the fight brings in a fortune.
”I think it needs somebody to stand up take the challenges and not be afraid to take risks and go to people’s back yards and do it,” Fury said. Can you imagine if I went to America and beat Deontay Wilder in America after beating Klitschko in Germany? That would be sensational. It might happen. Who knows? Wait for the news,” Fury said.
It would be a big deal if he 29-year-old Fury were to come over to the States to hand Wilder his career loss of his career. However, Fury has a long ways to go before he gets to that stage given how bad he looked in his comeback fight against Sefer Seferi on June 9. The 6’9” Fury looked rusty out of shape. Seferi was landing some nice shots in the 1st round, and it looked the fight was going to be a competitive one. However, Fury took over in round two and was nailing Seferi a will until he quit after round 4.
Joshua says Fury still needs to lose a lot of weight before he can face him. Joshua say Fury is still two stones overweight, and he feels he won’t be ready to fight until he’s at his old weight. For his comeback fight against Seferi, Fury weighed in at 276 pounds, which is 30 pounds more than he weighed for his fight against Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. Joshua wants Fury to get back down to the mid-240s.
”Fury can be the size he wants to be,” Joshua said via ESPN. ”There’s no stopping him from stepping up. If Wilder fight didn’t happen, I would happily fight Fury. He’s not in condition. He’s still two stones over to wen he fought Klitschko. Even though he’s lost weight he’s still two stones over his peak weight. When he’s a couple of pounds over, half a stone over, then I’ll say he’s at his peak again,” Joshua said.
I hate to break this to Joshua, but Fury might not ever get back to the 240s ever again, and if he does, he’ll likely be too weight drained to win. There’s a reason why fighters that have packed on a ton of weight like Fury did are never the same when they try and go back to their old weight. Their body doesn’t let them get back to that weigh and fight at the same level as they did before. I think Fury could have easily taken all the weight off if he had wanted to go get back to the 240s, but he would have been so badly weakened that he would have lost. It’s the same thing we saw with George Foreman. When he retired for 10 years, he ballooned up to 350+ pounds. When Foreman came back in the last 1980s, he wasn’t able to get back down to his old fighting weight of 225 lbs. Instead, Foreman fought in the 255+ lbs. region during his comeback. Foreman was slower obviously, but still effective due to his punching power, size, great jab and experience. Also, Foreman was selective in the guys that he was fighting in his comeback. Foreman didn’t fight Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis. Fury may need to fight in the 265 lb. region and be happy with that weight. It might be risky on Fury’s part to drop down to the 240s or 250s.
”What does he do, two sessions a day? I would rather do two boxing sessions a day,” Joshua said about Fury. ”Why would you do one boxing session and one run? Are you trying to be a part-time boxer and a part-time rack runner? Get in the gym. Focus on your gym work. That’s what Klitschko did. The best fighters spent more time in the gym than anywhere else. It’s a different type of boxing and he’s not ready for that,” Joshua said.
Joshua is barking up the wrong tree in comparing Fury’s ability to get in shape with that of Wladimir’s. You’re talking two different animals there. Wladimir never let himself get out of shape during the two years he was out of the ring from late 2015 to 2017 when he made a comeback to face Joshua in April of 2017 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. In contrast, Fury ballooned up to nearly 400 lbs. during his two years out of the ring. When a person puts that much weight on, it becomes almost a medical issue in losing that weight. It’s too much weight for someone to lose it in a short period of time an still be able to compete at a high level in a sport. The odds of Fury ever fighting at the level he did in the Klitschko fight are quite low. I think Fury has past the point of no return due to all the weight he put on and the kind of lifestyle he lived in the last two years.
Fury will be fighting next month against former heavyweight world title challenger Francesco Pianeta (35-4-1, 21 KOs) on August on the Carl Frampton vs. Luke Jackson card at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fury is taking a small jump up in competition in facing the 6’5″ Pianeta, who has lost recent fights to Kevin Johnson and Petar Milas.