Fury Throws More Doubt On Highly Anticipated Joshua Clash

Every boxing fan around the globe knows that at some point the now often fabled Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua encounter will go ahead in the ring and it will be accompanied by all the expected noise, digs, razzmatazz and the associated financial rewards. Even though individual contracts have now finally been signed, the almost endless talks and barbs continue.

The 38 year old Gypsy King has recently resumed his pattern of going after Joshua in recent weeks, and his latest mind game is to suggest that the target of November for the all British heavyweight showdown will now never be penciled in and you would have been able to find odds on that being the unfortunate outcome on the boxing betting sites for a while now. Fury has instead claimed that he is now looking for a new opponent for the open November window, and he has pivoted to a fighter he knows well, Oleksandr Usyk.

Although the deal with Saudi Arabian promoter Sela has been signed and sealed, it has not been delivered yet as despite all the pointers being for November, there continues to be disagreements over where the fight should actually take place – and that delay to the official announcement has now seen organisers push for a United States staging, as opposed to 36 year old AJ’s preferred United Kingdom and Wembley Stadium spectacle.

With the matter still not sorted even though we are now through the first week of September and fight month nears, Manchester native Fury unleashed an expletive laded video on his social media pages, claiming that Joshua was trying to back out of the fight.

So in return, Fury called out Usyk.

“This will only lead me to a fight with Oleksandr Usyk. Oleksandr you’re his trainer and his sensei and you know he is weak minded… and that he would never fight the Gypsy King which you have had the guts to do twice.”

He continued by saying that during their last rumble Usyk got all the decisions, so why not meet again in November for a re-run as he is ‘looking for a new opponent’ – unless he is ‘calling it quits?’ and properly hanging up his gloves and shorts to favour retirement.

With the two time undisputed Heavyweight champion now part of Joshua’s training and coaching team, it is a very obvious and understandable twist for Fury to throw out there to keep the pressure, and the hype, building for whenever this fight now does actually take place. There is also an obvious grain of truth to it as well as Fury has lost twice to Usyk and he would dearly love to add a victory to his own career tally before he turns his own attentions towards a potential retirement as age and Father Time catches up with him.

Whether or not this is a very deliberate hint that talks have now fully broken down, as plenty of unsourced speculation on the boxing rumour mill has claimed and discussed, remains to be seen but in terms of an official comment from Sela, Queensberry and Matchroom on this front, well, they declined to comment when asked.

We will have to see what the next few weeks bring.

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