The clamour for a Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua heavyweight boxing blockbuster continues, but now we have two major blockers to a showdown in 2025.
All the talk so far this year is that the bout simply has to happen at last, with both of these British superstars entering the twilight of their ring careers, and neither now possessing a world title.
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While Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois prepare to face off at Wembley Stadium on July 19 for all of the marbles, Fury and Joshua are on the outside looking in. We should get an undisputed champion in just over eight weeks, but it won’t be either of them.
Instead the biggest fight left for both men is against each other, but it appears that it will not happen in 2025. For two massive reasons.
Fury retired, AJ injured
First of all Fury (34-2-1) remains retired, and very happily so, even if he did hint last week in a video with trainer Sugar Hill Steward that a comeback could be on the cards.
Add in the fact Joshua (28-4) now requires elbow surgery which will keep him out of the gym for another 6-8 weeks, and the window for a showdown with ‘The Gypsy King’ in 2025 is closing fast.
AJ has discussed alternative comeback opponents in recent days – including Deontay Wilder, Agit Kabayel and Martin Bakole. So it does not appear that he would jump right back in against Fury.
As for Tyson, he has yet to even indicate he is unretiring and wants to fight AJ, as promoter Frank Warren re-iterated during an interview with talkSPORT.
Warren on Fury vs Joshua
“I actually spoke to him very briefly this morning, he was uh, he was in the middle of a meeting, and I pocket dialed, I pocket dialed him and he rang me back and said he’d call me back, so I’m gonna speak to him later on the cellphone. But I’m not gonna speak to him about boxing.
“If he’s going to do it as I’ve said from the beginning – that would be his choice. He doesn’t need to do it. I know he’s got, he’s extremely busy at the moment, he’s got a lot of projects on, and some exciting projects, and there is life after boxing for him, but if he wants to do it (Fury VS Joshua) he’ll do it, he’s a fighting man.”
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Warren also rammed home the point that Joshua’s latest injury means any showdown with Fury would likely not be immediate.
“The other interesting thing is that I was out in, I was out here in Riyadh the weekend for the show out there, and AJ was there, and he was having an operation. He’s having a procedure, I think it’s on his hand or, I’m sure it’s on his hand, but anyway, he’s having an operation so even if it were to, you know, he were to come back, that fight would not happen straight away.”
