You cannot blame a man for trying, and Anthony Joshua is still pushing hard for that long-awaited heavyweight blockbuster vs Tyson Fury.
Both of these two-time world heavyweight champions are on the outside looking in when it comes to the title picture in 2025, but a meeting between the pair is still probably the biggest fight out there.
Promoter Eddie Hearn believes both men would earn north of £100million each for one night’s work should they eventually step into a ring to fight each other. But we’ve waited a long time, and so far, still no dice.
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They actually signed a two-fight deal back in 2021, but then along came Deontay Wilder to win an arbitration ruling to force a third fight against Fury. Then AJ lost his titles to one Oleksandr Uysk, and the whole thing fell apart.
There have been further false starts since then, but heading into 2025 surely there were no further blockers. Neither man holds a world title – so the famously tortuous political machinations of the sanctioning bodies are no longer in play.
Even the fact that both men were coming off devastating losses – Fury in a rematch vs Usyk and Joshua by KO to Daniel Dubois – did not remove all the financial lustre from a fight which feels necessary to put a bow on this particular heavyweight era.
AJ (now 28-4) is now just about recovered from the elbow surgery he underwent in May, and ready to return to the ring again after turning 36 years old on October 15. He is raring to go, he wants Fury, but what about ‘The Gypsy King’?
The year 2025 has been an on-off saga for the now 37-year-old Morecambe man, will he fight again or won’t he. He retired from the sport on the back of the loss to Usyk, and this week again said he has no desire to return to the sport. This though did come after he had teased a 2026 return just a few short weeks ago.
You could of course see all of this as smart positioning to build the desire for the fight in the minds of boxing fans and casuals alike – Fury vs Joshua would be an enormous event. A Super Bowl of boxing, in the UK at least.
What Joshua said about Fury record
Joshua, despite Fury’s latest statement, is not giving up on the biggest fight out there for either man. And he goaded his bitter rival during an interview with respected Spanish outlet Marca this week.
He said: “I think it’s very possible [a fight vs Fury] – I think it’s more possible now than it’s ever been. He has no options any more, he has to fight me. He wants to fight, I think he enjoys it but I just feel like he doesn’t have any more options.”
Nothing too controversial in that for starters, but here is where AJ really gets spicy as he tries to deconstruct Fury’s 34-2-1 career record.
“Who else is he gonna fight? He doesn’t really fight too many champions and people want to see him fight the best people. You can’t be fighting lower-level opponents all your career. He fought Wilder, Klitschko, Usyk but it’s not enough. We need more – we need Joshuas, we need [Joseph] Parkers, all these other heavyweights. We need [Zhilei] Zhangs, we need Agit Kabayels, we need all of these guys, we need to fight each other.”
So is AJ right with his claim?
In our estimation – and boxing is all about debate and analysis – Joshua could not be more wrong about Fury’s record. ‘Lower-level opponents’ – don’t make us laugh, Anthony.
Fury has just come off two gruelling decision losses to Usyk – the first one by a wafer-thin margin where he had looked totally in control eight rounds in.
‘The Gypsy King’ also went to war three times with Deontay Wilder – the most devastating puncher in the division in this era. The last of those a life-or-death blockbuster which went 11 rounds before ‘The Bronze Bomber’ finally went out on his shield.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Fury went into Wladimir Klitshko’s German back yard and took the world titles away from the Ukrainian giant with a quite spectacular display of tactical mastery.
Yes, Joshua may have fought more ranked boxers down the years, but Fury’s big fights against the very best prove that he ducks nobody and that he has almost always come out on top.
So will Fury vs Joshua happen?
There is a feeling of inevitability about it all. And it feels a little bit like all those Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao years – remember when we waited for that fight to happen?
Arguably Floyd and Manny were both at their peaks in 2010 and dominating everybody, but we had to wait until 2015 for them to finally rumble. They weren’t quite the same by then (Manny definitely wasn’t) but the bout remains the biggest ever in terms of PPV buys and revenue (4.6million buys).
Fury vs Joshua has an eerily similar feel to it – they were both getting ready to fight in 2020 after both became world champions for a second time, and here we are, five years on, still waiting.
It does though remain by far the biggest fight out there for either man, with only a dangerous assignment with the brilliant young Moses Itauma coming close in our opinion. Usyk may be the champion, but he has beaten both Fury and Joshua twice, conclusive evidence in our opinion.
What has Fury said?
So now we wait – we know Joshua wants the fight, but does Fury? His latest statement this week once again talks of being retired for good, but the history of boxing is littered with those sort of statements before a fighter eventually returns. It is the nature of the game.
For the record Tyson said this (to YouTube channel FurociTV) about his boxing future:
“There’s no actual reason for me to go back in the boxing ring. I’m 37 years old, I’ve been punched for the last 25 years, what do I want to go back to boxing for?
“It used to be for the money, the titles, but now I’ve got more money than I can spend, I’ve got unlimited amounts of belts and titles, and does it make me any happier? No.
“Was the chase better than the victory? Yes. The climb was better than the mountain peak, to be fair. Always the case. I could go back to boxing at any given time, but I just don’t want to.
“I’ve got no interest in that clamour or the limelight, or to go get punched again, I’m not interested, it doesn’t do anything for me.
“You could offer me £1bn today, and it wouldn’t move the needle, because I’ve gone past that point of caring about what other people think.
“Boxing doesn’t take any prisoners, it only takes casualties. So for me to be sat here, all my faculties in order, won every belt, made loads of money, and not got a scratch on me, I’ve done really well there.
“But I don’t want to tempt fate. I don’t want to keep going back and back to the well because how many times can you keep doing it without getting brain damage or whatever else? Not being able to walk in a straight line, it’d all be pointless then.”
