Tyson Fury has delivered a KO blow to Anthony Joshua’s hopes of ever fighting him, claiming: “I couldn’t give a flying hoot about that body builder.”
Fight fans still dream of seeing two of Britain’s greatest heavyweights clash after a planned £200million superfight in Saudi Arabia fell through last summer. Fury, though, insists he has moved on and says he has no interest in fighting Joshua since he lost his three world titles to Oleksandr Usyk.
The unbeaten WBC king defends his crown against Dillian Whyte in front of a record 94,000 crowd at Wembley on Saturday and says the former WBA Super, IBF and WBO champ is not on his radar. “I couldn’t give one flying hoot or sniff about that body builder, no interest,” said Fury.
“When he was an unbeaten man, not a problem, when he was a champion, not a bother, but now he has nothing to offer. What did he say years ago? I only want to fight the people who have the belts. All of a sudden, he doesn’t have any belts.”
Fury, 33, claims Joshua will become even more irrelevant when he loses his summer rematch to Usyk. The Gypsy King does not see how he could rebuild his career after a third shattering loss and mocked him for demanding £20million step-aside money to let him face the Ukrainian in his place.
Fury’s team were prepared to pay Joshua £15million to step aside and the Traveller branded him as “greedy”. “Here’s how it goes, you heard it here first, he’s going to get busted by Usyk in the rematch if he even has the guts to take it, then he’s finished, career over,” he said.
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“Three losses, goodnight Vienna, got beat by a middleweight move over. He had the opportunity to make it all go away and let me take care of his dirty washing and pay him money to do it, but he didn’t because greed got the better of him.
“They thought I was a desperate man and that I wanted to fight for the undisputed title that much, I’d give away everything. The demands these people were making were ridiculous. Out of every negative situation, something positive has happened and I’m smiling now like a Cheshire Cat.”
Fury claims his offer to train Joshua, who has ditched Rob McCracken, to team up with Angel Fernandez, still stands, although he questioned his rival’s desire. “I’m willing to train him, but he’s got to be willing to learn,” he said.
“In my world, numbers on a screen on a heart rate monitor are not welcome. You train hard, you put your life and soul into something and you fight until the end. You don’t quit when you get knocked down, you don’t look out of the ring like you don’t want to fight on, you go and throw the kitchen sink when you’re behind in a world title fight.
“You don’t cruise to a points loss because in my world, getting knocked out in round one is better than losing on points and not trying to win.”