By Barry Holbrook: Eddie Hearn says he believes Tyson Fury’s retirement today was a move designed to try and take the publicity away from the Anthony Joshua vs. Oleksander Usyk II rematch next week on August 20th.
Hearn believes Fury’s decision to tell his fans he’s retiring is more of a sign of insecurity because he can’t handle all the attention Joshua’s getting for his rematch with unified heavyweight champion Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs).
No one knows if Fury is serious about his latest retirement. Although he told WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman that he’s retiring, there’s no word whether he’ll give up his title with the organization.
If Fury doesn’t, it would mean that he’s not serious about retiring. He would be playing another game.
It’s safe to say that if Joshua defeats Usyk, we’ll see Fury immediately posting on social media that he’s coming out of retirement.
He would have to act quickly because Joshua is interested in fighting Deontay Wilder, and that’s a fight that would play out big both in the UK and U.S.
“Someone told me today that Tyson Fury has announced his retirement again,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV. “He must be so insecure to have to. Every time AJ fights, he does this.
“I don’t know at what point you’d sit there and go, ‘What I’m going to do is I’m going to start talking loads of s*** to get publicity to try and take it away from AJ.’
“You are self-proclaimed the #1 heavyweight in the world. So why are you bothered about Anthony Joshua for? He [Fury] doesn’t want the money. No interest in the money. He wants half a billion.
“I’ve never seen so many contradictions. I contradict myself so much. He’s on another level. Let’s see what happens next week. Let’s see AJ knockout Oleksandr Usyk, and then he’s coming for Tyson Fury,” said Hearn.
That would be huge for Joshua to knockout Usyk. If that’s not enough to get Fury to take the fight, he must really not want to return to the ring. Usyk is considered the favorite, so it’s going to take something special from Joshua to KO him.
