Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
One of the strangest, most illogical realities in boxing today is Tyson Fury’s bizarre refusal to fight Anthony Joshua. It’s the biggest money fight he could possibly earn but for some mysterious reason Fury is adamantly against it ever happening.
“I don’t even go there anymore. No interest in any AJ questions. Zero. Man’s dead in my eyes. There’s no business between me and him to be done. Finished. From 2017 to – however long it’s been – 2022 – trying to make a fight. So it’s not happening,” is Fury’s latest reasoning to duck Joshua.
At the end of 2022 Fury was singing a different song. Surprisingly Fury suddenly wanted to fight Joshua, who was coming off the decision loss to Usyk. Most ring observers expected Joshua to decline Fury’s offer but he accepted it and tried to make the fight. Fury then changed his tune and started issuing deadlines for Joshua to make a deal. Fury even said he wanted to rush the fight with Joshua because he planned to fight Usyk in February. Of course Fury was bluffing. Joshua had called Fury’s bluff. Fury ended up canceling the AJ fight and handpicking a third fight with Dereck Chisora which he, as expected, won easily. Fury, of course, has not made good on his promised plan to fight Usyk in February. Fury has still not signed any contract to fight Usyk. It has been Usyk who has pushed hard to finalize a fight with Fury. Now there are whispers that Fury is having secret negotiations to fight a fourth fight with Deontay Wilder next.
When a top world champion exhibits illogical behavior it arouses curiosity, speculation and suspicion. Why on earth would Fury be so negative about fighting Anthony Joshua, who has lost three of this last five fights?
With three decades in the sport as an insider, I have enough experience to speculate. I think Fury is shot as a fighter and he knows it and only wants easy WWF set ups from here on out until he sells the belt to Jared Anderson or Joe Joyce, who are the next generation heavyweights controlled by Fury’s promoters Bob Arum and Frank Warren. It’s plausible Fury is set up to earn a percentage from Arum and Warren if he “transfers” the belt to Joyce or Anderson. You know, the old Joe Louis and James J. Braddock deal where Braddock got a cut of all of Joe Louis’s world title fights after he lost by KO to Louis.
Fury looked amazing vs Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 when he was 27. But Fury is 34 now and he’s an old 34. He has not taken care of his body. In a sense, Fury is like the old throwback fighters who lived life to the fullest outside of their fights and all those former heavyweight champions like Larry Holmes, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Ken Norton were all finished by their mid 30s.
Fury is always fat and his body looks very bad for a world class athlete. It means he will have a shorter career, a shorter prime. I believe Fury knows his own mortality better than anyone. That’s why he tried so hard to duck mandatory Dillian Whyte by having the WBC lower Whyte’s mandated percentage. Fury finally got forced into the fight and did win by knockout – but that uppercut and victory may have surprised Fury more than it did the boxing world.
You would think Fury would be ultra confident after beating Whyte and he would truly, eagerly want to fight Usyk to unify and also destroy the “bodybuilder” Joshua in what surely would be the biggest money heavyweight fight in boxing history at Wembley Stadium.
If Fury tries to fight Wilder or the UFC novice next it will be thoroughly obvious that Fury is finished as a real fighter and he only wants to coast to the finish line as a ghost illusion of what he used to be.
