BOXING PROMOTERS WILL treat you mean to keep you keen, but at what point is the relationship simply abusive?
An all-British superfight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua has been on more times than an office kettle on a slow Tuesday, the boxing public beginning to bubble with excitement on each occasion only for some clown or another to flip the trip-switch.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But fool me three times, and the shame is back on you; why must you keep trying to fool me?
Boxing’s longest-running saga has led us on for the guts of a decade. It’s over six years since Daniel Kinahan was roundly praised in British and American media for bringing together promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren and ‘finally’ getting the fight over the line.
“I’m just after getting off the phone with Daniel Kinahan,” said Tyson Fury in an Instagram video post. “He’s just informed me that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed.
“A big shout out… to Dan.”
The disappearance of the boxing journalist was rarely so observable. Fury’s proclamation was parroted verbatim by non-Irish journalists, content creators, and social media pages; in the summer of 2020, Dan was, to them, just a boxing power broker, much in the same way that the great comedy writer Jim Downey would describe Jeff Epstein as “the New York financier” in his subsequently famous bit on Conan O’Brien’s podcast.
The sickos among us who follow boxing more intently could smell a rat: the ‘announcement’ that echoed around the sporting world in June 2020 was that a deal had been agreed for Fury to face Joshua the following year – a red herring in a sea as choppy as professional boxing, where plans capsize even when conditions appear optimal.
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A US arbitrator had already ruled a month earlier that WBC champion Fury was contractually obligated to fulfil his trilogy bout with Deontay Wilder in the intervening months, meaning Joshua would also likely make a defence of his WBA, IBF and WBO titles in the interim.
Add to the blender a respiratory virus which, while still novel, was already well on course to make a balls of absolutely everything in the entire world, and this apparently agreed all-British heavyweight showdown wasn’t so much as a speck on the horizon.
Sure enough, Covid-19 restrictions in Britain and the USA initially pushed the legally mandated Fury-Wilder three-match as far back as July 2021, and then forced its further postponement until October of that year when a member of Fury’s camp tested positive for the virus.
Joshua, meanwhile, understandably unwilling to sit on his thumbs, beat Kubrat Pulev behind closed doors just shy of Christmas 2020, and subsequently accepted the challenge of cruiserweight convert Oleksandr Usyk the following September; a bout in which the beltholder was pieced up and almost stopped by the Ukrainian great, and one which warranted a career rebuild.
Anthony Joshua in action against Kristian Prenga last month. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Its commercial value down the swanny, relatively speaking, Fury-Joshua was sunk for the umpteenth time.
All stakeholders, as well as a new player, Turki Al-Sheikh (Jim Downey might describe him as ‘the Saudi financier’), are now seeking to raid the wreckage for its remaining treasure, but much of its gold has been lost to the sands of time.
Over 73 combined professional fights, Fury, Joshua and their respective teams have concocted ways to avoid a fight that might have defined a heavyweight era, each side – and each boxer – terrified to have to become the one who lost to the other.
Within his first seven fights up at heavyweight, Usyk – who gave up between three and six inches in height, between four and seven inches in reach, and between 23 and 55 pounds on the scales – beat ‘The Gypsy King’ and ‘AJ’ twice each. When it is eventually written, this chapter of heavyweight boxing will not bear the names of Fury or Joshua as its title but that of their decisive, undefeated conqueror.
As such, while it stretches far longer, now, than the ordeal that was putting together Mayweather-Pacquiao, a bout for which the hunger began in 2009 and was sated – or not, arguably – in 2015, Fury-Joshua has long lost its heavyweight equivalence to the welterweight Fight of the Century.
Instead, it more closely resembles the 2022 British grudge match between a washed-up Kell Brook and an even more washed-up Amir Khan; based on each of their recent performances, Fury and Joshua now look like Amir Khan’t Anymores.
At this juncture in their respective careers, Fury-Joshua will, much like Brook’s stoppage of Khan, not even prove who was truly the superior fighter of the pair – they’re simply too far gone for any future meeting to be back-translated to what the fight might have looked like between 2016 and 2021.
While one could argue the toss on their CVs, most would acknowledge that Fury has typically been the superior boxer to Joshua. Given how little appeared left in Fury’s tank during his recent comeback victories over Arslanbek Makhmudov and Mariusz Wach, even this shadow of Joshua could conceivably beat him in 2026 or beyond.
And what would it prove were Fury to topple Joshua, a man still computing the trauma of losing his two closest friends in a car crash in which he was also a passenger; a man whose courage in the ring can’t be questioned but whose punch resistance has diminished to an extent only usually observed at the tail-end of a career.
Overnight, during a WWE event, Netflix released a teaser for a fight that, once again, has not yet been confirmed.
‘FINALLY. TWO CHAMPIONS. ONE CROWN… COMING SOON.’
Neither man is a current champion. The crown is in Ukraine. There is still no date, no location, for what amounts to a fight for personal bragging rights and, at best, one last title shot.
That the market and Turki Al-Sheikh seem intent on pulling their all-British showdown to New York, where it would take place well beyond midnight on this side of the Atlantic, encapsulates Fury-Joshua perfectly as a rivalry.
It has never been, and it never will be, about the fans. They have been treated mean. And this is no longer a fight for which they should be keen.
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Years too late, a fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua has lost all meaning
BOXING PROMOTERS WILL treat you mean to keep you keen, but at what point is the relationship simply abusive?
An all-British superfight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua has been on more times than an office kettle on a slow Tuesday, the boxing public beginning to bubble with excitement on each occasion only for some clown or another to flip the trip-switch.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But fool me three times, and the shame is back on you; why must you keep trying to fool me?
Boxing’s longest-running saga has led us on for the guts of a decade. It’s over six years since Daniel Kinahan was roundly praised in British and American media for bringing together promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren and ‘finally’ getting the fight over the line.
“I’m just after getting off the phone with Daniel Kinahan,” said Tyson Fury in an Instagram video post. “He’s just informed me that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed.
“A big shout out… to Dan.”
The disappearance of the boxing journalist was rarely so observable. Fury’s proclamation was parroted verbatim by non-Irish journalists, content creators, and social media pages; in the summer of 2020, Dan was, to them, just a boxing power broker, much in the same way that the great comedy writer Jim Downey would describe Jeff Epstein as “the New York financier” in his subsequently famous bit on Conan O’Brien’s podcast.
The sickos among us who follow boxing more intently could smell a rat: the ‘announcement’ that echoed around the sporting world in June 2020 was that a deal had been agreed for Fury to face Joshua the following year – a red herring in a sea as choppy as professional boxing, where plans capsize even when conditions appear optimal.
A US arbitrator had already ruled a month earlier that WBC champion Fury was contractually obligated to fulfil his trilogy bout with Deontay Wilder in the intervening months, meaning Joshua would also likely make a defence of his WBA, IBF and WBO titles in the interim.
Add to the blender a respiratory virus which, while still novel, was already well on course to make a balls of absolutely everything in the entire world, and this apparently agreed all-British heavyweight showdown wasn’t so much as a speck on the horizon.
Sure enough, Covid-19 restrictions in Britain and the USA initially pushed the legally mandated Fury-Wilder three-match as far back as July 2021, and then forced its further postponement until October of that year when a member of Fury’s camp tested positive for the virus.
Joshua, meanwhile, understandably unwilling to sit on his thumbs, beat Kubrat Pulev behind closed doors just shy of Christmas 2020, and subsequently accepted the challenge of cruiserweight convert Oleksandr Usyk the following September; a bout in which the beltholder was pieced up and almost stopped by the Ukrainian great, and one which warranted a career rebuild.
Its commercial value down the swanny, relatively speaking, Fury-Joshua was sunk for the umpteenth time.
All stakeholders, as well as a new player, Turki Al-Sheikh (Jim Downey might describe him as ‘the Saudi financier’), are now seeking to raid the wreckage for its remaining treasure, but much of its gold has been lost to the sands of time.
Over 73 combined professional fights, Fury, Joshua and their respective teams have concocted ways to avoid a fight that might have defined a heavyweight era, each side – and each boxer – terrified to have to become the one who lost to the other.
Within his first seven fights up at heavyweight, Usyk – who gave up between three and six inches in height, between four and seven inches in reach, and between 23 and 55 pounds on the scales – beat ‘The Gypsy King’ and ‘AJ’ twice each. When it is eventually written, this chapter of heavyweight boxing will not bear the names of Fury or Joshua as its title but that of their decisive, undefeated conqueror.
As such, while it stretches far longer, now, than the ordeal that was putting together Mayweather-Pacquiao, a bout for which the hunger began in 2009 and was sated – or not, arguably – in 2015, Fury-Joshua has long lost its heavyweight equivalence to the welterweight Fight of the Century.
Instead, it more closely resembles the 2022 British grudge match between a washed-up Kell Brook and an even more washed-up Amir Khan; based on each of their recent performances, Fury and Joshua now look like Amir Khan’t Anymores.
At this juncture in their respective careers, Fury-Joshua will, much like Brook’s stoppage of Khan, not even prove who was truly the superior fighter of the pair – they’re simply too far gone for any future meeting to be back-translated to what the fight might have looked like between 2016 and 2021.
While one could argue the toss on their CVs, most would acknowledge that Fury has typically been the superior boxer to Joshua. Given how little appeared left in Fury’s tank during his recent comeback victories over Arslanbek Makhmudov and Mariusz Wach, even this shadow of Joshua could conceivably beat him in 2026 or beyond.
And what would it prove were Fury to topple Joshua, a man still computing the trauma of losing his two closest friends in a car crash in which he was also a passenger; a man whose courage in the ring can’t be questioned but whose punch resistance has diminished to an extent only usually observed at the tail-end of a career.
Overnight, during a WWE event, Netflix released a teaser for a fight that, once again, has not yet been confirmed.
‘FINALLY. TWO CHAMPIONS. ONE CROWN… COMING SOON.’
Neither man is a current champion. The crown is in Ukraine. There is still no date, no location, for what amounts to a fight for personal bragging rights and, at best, one last title shot.
That the market and Turki Al-Sheikh seem intent on pulling their all-British showdown to New York, where it would take place well beyond midnight on this side of the Atlantic, encapsulates Fury-Joshua perfectly as a rivalry.
It has never been, and it never will be, about the fans. They have been treated mean. And this is no longer a fight for which they should be keen.
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