By Charles Brun: Anthony Joshua looking past his next fight against Oleksandr Usyk on September 25th towards his massive money clash against fellow Brit Tyson Fury.
Joshua appears to be going down the same dirty back road as he did two years ago when he overlooked Andy Ruiz Jr and wound up getting knocked out in seven rounds in June 2019.
As you can tell, Joshua can’t change his basic nature in wanting to overlook the present reality. There are many people like Joshua out there, and they wind up suffering because they can’t focus on the present.
The more Joshua squawks about wanting to fight Fury, the more Charles Brun believes Oleksandr Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) will do a number on him on September 25th.
Joshua is getting WAY ahead of himself by pining away for the fight with Fury because there’s a real possibility that both of them will become losers in their next fights.
Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) believes that boxing needs the fight between him and Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) to take place, and he thinks he’ll help the sport. That’s a debatable view.
It’ll definitely help UK boxing, but it won’t help the sport elsewhere because Joshua and Fury are only popular in the United Kingdom.
Neither has done much outside of the UK and if they both lose their fights, that’ll be even more obvious.
Joshua says he needs the Fury fight
“Do I need Tyson Fury on my record? I need it,” Joshua said to 5 Live Boxing podcast. “Fight good fighters, and they bring out the best of you.
“We need it for boxing,” Joshua continued. “Do I need Tyson Fury on my record? We need it for boxing. I need it; you need it; the boxing world needs it.
“To fight Tyson Fury is a big challenge for myself; I’m going to put that pressure on myself. I need it just for that, ‘Let’s see how good I am,” said Joshua.
What would help boxing in the real sense is if Wilder beats Fury and Joshua defeats Usyk. What would happen then is a fight between Joshua and Wilder, which will interest fans from the UK and the United States.
That’s a much bigger fight than Joshua vs. Fury because that mess will only interest UK boxing fans, not U.S fans. Americans already saw Joshua lose to a fat Andy Ruiz Jr. when he came to the U.S.
As for Fury, many U.S fans view him as a cheater for the way he beat Wilder with rabbit punching and flapping gloves. You can argue that Fury’s stock can’t get any lower in the U.S.
That could change if Fury looks good against Wilder on October 9th and doesn’t use rabbit punching or clinching to win. As long as Fury doesn’t dirty it against Wilder, Americans will give him credit, but I don’t know that he can do that.
‘The Gypsy King’ Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) has a trilogy match with Deontay Wilder next month on October 9th, and it’s not a certainty that he’s going to win that fight.
Will Hearn use Whyte to protect Joshua from Wilder?
If Wilder knocks out Fury, as many believe he will, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will likely use Dillian Whyte to run interference for AJ by insisting that Deontay defend the WBC title immediately against Dillian.
Of course, if Fury beats Wilder, Hearn will obviously be looking to match Joshua against Tyson. It’s very predictable how this is going to play out if Fury loses to Wilder.
We know for a fact that Fury has been working hard trying to squirm out of facing Wilder a third time, but he’s failed at doing so.
With the improvements Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) has made in his game with the help of his new coach Malik Scott, a victory on October 9th is not out of the question.
If Fury can’t get away with rabbit punching this time, he could end up getting knocked out like he was in the first fight with Wilder. That was the one where the referee shockingly gave Fury a count while he was unconscious.