Shane Fury, brother of heavyweight champ Tyson, has expressed doubt on the potential fight between ‘The Gypsy King’ and Anthony Joshua.
It all started with a call out from Tyson Fury, the current WBC Heavyweight Champion of the World. Many thought ‘AJ’ would swerve it considering he had just emerged from a tough twelve-round loss to Oleksandr Usyk, but anybody who did was wrong. He accepted and formal negotiations have progressed from there.
However, there’s still no signed contract. Fury, who is a regular in his brother’s corner, told Boxing Social that he would bet on the all-British clash falling through.
“If I had to put my money on it I would say it’s not happening. I’d be happy if it did get made because I’d be very confident … We’re very confident in that [the win] but I’m not that confident it’s going to happen.”
“It all boils down to if both men want it, and if both men don’t want it and one’s doing it for the wrong reasons, it’ll never happen. So, we’ll see. They need to jog on. Whoever’s holding it up or whatever’s holding it up, it needs either to be fixed or it needs to be forgotten about.”
“It it doesn’t happen now, I don’t think it will ever happen, because the simple reason being Tyson won’t be giving Joshua the chance, whether it’s he’s on the top on end or he’s on the top end, he’ll not do it again.”
“I’m not optimistic that he [Joshua] believes this fight’s going ahead… I don’t think it’s going to happen”
He went on to discuss what the alternative might be, naming Mahmoud (formerly Manuel) Charr as a potential opponent and happy to make it no secret that he would like to see his brother have an easier fight to prepare for a undisputed clash in the future.
“He’s going to be probably fighting Manuel Charr – [who] I could have a good tussle with myself – and have an easy run out. But in that camp he’s going to have world class southpaw sparring, he’s going to get his body in shape, and then he’s going to give his body a little rest, and then he’s going to go into the big unification fight and give Usyk a boxing lesson.”
“Unless Joshua can happen, because Joshua’s a big name and he’s a good scalp – and he can easily tip Tyson over because it’s heavyweight boxing and he’s very good – but, if that doesn’t happen it’s going to be a run out for Tyson, and the worse opponent the better.”
Whilst most updates on the Fury – AJ bout, targeted for December 3 in Cardiff, have been positive, Shane Fury is the second person close to the fighters to come out and cast doubt – the first being Fury’s co-promoter, Bob Arum.