Tyson Fury has once again claimed that Deontay Wilder is a better heavyweight contender than Anthony Joshua, and believes he is more of a fighting man.
Fury and Wilder had a famous trilogy of fights between 2018 and 2021, with the Brit winning two by knockout and drawing the first one. Their initial deal came after Wilder was unable to get a deal done to face Joshua, with varying reports from either side as to why the super-fight didn't happen.
And now with Fury and Wilder having squared off three times, while Joshua has faced neither in his two runs as world champion, the current WBC title holder has argued that his rival refuses to face opponents he would be the underdog against. He has lost three times in his career, twice to Oleksandr Usyk and once to Andy Ruiz Jr, but has only once entered a fight as the underdog.
Over the month of September, Fury and Joshua's teams were locked in negotiations and contract talks for a short-notice bout between the pair. But it was pulled at the last minute, with Fury claiming that the Olympic gold medalist's ego, as well as his team's, was the reason it didn't go ahead.
“ Deontay Wilder took me to f***ing court to get the fight," Fury told Secondsout. "Then this other big sausage [Joshua], he’s had a contract and didn’t sign it. One man risked losing millions to make the fight, and one man’s running from millions. Different men completely.
"And by the way, behind the scenes until recently they were still trying to contact Wilder while they were trying to do negotiations with me. So, they're all out in the cold where they belong, get out there dossers, zero world titles, zero belts, the 'road to undisputed' is finished, dosser!"
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Negotiations are said to have broke down between Fury and Joshua's teams over commercial deals, of which Joshua has many already agreed before he even competes. It would have been the former champion's first time appearing on a show mainly promoted by someone other than Matchroom, and the deal ultimately fell apart.
“He has never fought someone who is going to beat him,” Fury said later in the same interview. “I’ll tell you what else they can’t do, these control freaks. They can’t go on somebody else’s show because their egos too big. This was not Joshua-Fury because Fury doesn’t have three losses.
"This was Fury-Joshua, and it was all my show. So for them to turn up with their size egos and play ball and be the opponent, they’re not going to do that. They wouldn’t do it for $50million for Wilder to go to America and fight Wilder in a Wilder vs. Joshua show. Me and Deontay proved, although we don’t like each other and we have no love lost, and he’s accused me of a million bull s*** things - the one thing I can say about Deontay is the man has got balls."
