Boxing News - Latest Headlines

By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury is once again saying that he’s only two fights left before he walks away into the sunset to enjoy retirement. Fury doesn’t plan

If the newly crowned WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) is serious about retiring, then his last two fights will be against Deontay Wilder on July 18 and then Anthony Joshua in December.tto

Tyson wants to hang up his gloves in 2020

Fury hopes to win these two fights, and his career undefeated 12-year pro career undefeated. The only blemish would be the 12 round draw that Fury has from his first fight against Wilder in 2018, but he won’t lose sleep about that. Fury already calls that a victory for himself.

“I’ve got two more fights left, and then we’re going to really think about what we’re going to do from there,” Fury said to ITV’s This Morning. “I’m undefeated in 31 professional fights. This is my 12th year as a professional.”

It’s very likely than Fury’s contract runs out with Top Rank, they’ll make a huge effort to re-sign him for another five fights, which would take him into 2023. Why would Top Rank not want to keep Fury around? He’s only now starting to ask big money for them after they gave him two soft fights against Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin.

Top Rank gave Fury those easy fights to build his popularity in North America, and it would be crazy for them to let him retire without making mass money.  Now that Fury has built his popularity up in the United States, Top Rank will undoubtedly want to cash in on that success by signing Fury to a new contract and have him fight Joshua two or three times.

Hearn wants a trilogy between Fury and Joshua

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t satisfied with AJ fighting Fury just once. Hearn wants to sign a 2-fight deal starting with Fury fighting Joshua in December, and then in a rematch in the first half of 2021.

These are the fights that Fury could have if he chooses not to retire:

• Deontay Wilder
• Anthony Joshua x 3
• Oleksandr Usyk
• Dereck Chisora
• Dillian Whyte
• Joseph Parker
• Adam Kownacki

Those are all winnable fights for Fury as long as he doesn’t let himself go in between fights like he used to do, but he’ll need to stay motivated. You can argue that Fury has a fear of failure that may ultimately keep him from achieving his ultimate potential. The way that Fury talks, he sounds like he doesn’t want to stick around long enough to where he’ll eventually get beaten.

Fury doesn’t possess the same determination that we saw in past heavyweights like Evander Holyfield, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson in wanting to stick it out until the bitter end. Fury is more like Rocky Marciano, Lennox Lewis and Jack Dempsey in wanting to get out of the sport while he’s still fighting at a high level.

Fury could retire a billionaire

Fury’s dad John believes that he deserves $250 million for the Joshua fight in December. You figure if Fury fights Joshua three times, he could end up with three-quarters of a billion. The other six fights that Fury could take against the other heavyweights would make him a billionaire potentially. That’s not bad for a fighter that only now is coming into the big money at 31.

“There’s no reason why we can’t put that deal in place now for the winner of those two fights,” said Hearn to BBC.com in discussing his hopes to conclude a deal between Fury and Joshua now for December. “To have two British heavyweight champions is unbelievable but to have them fighting for the undisputed championship is something that will never, ever happen in our lifetime again,” said Hearn.

Fury probably won’t make the deal right now for the Joshua fight because things could change in his favor if he does a good job of beating Wilder in July.

This won’t be the last time there are two British heavyweight champions facing each other. The young 22-year-old Daniel Dubois will likely soon become a heavyweight champion in the near future. Once that happens, a fight between Dubois and Joshua is a near certainty.