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Steve KimESPN
Tyson Fury’s team might be hard at work trying to make a late 2020 fight against Anthony Joshua a reality, but Fury, the lineal heavyweight champion and WBC titleholder, has had his focus centered on home.
He’s been making the most of his time the past six-plus weeks as the world has been shut down, and while sequestered away inside his home, Fury hasn’t been shy in sharing his workouts on social media.
But boxing isn’t really at the forefront of his mind at this moment.
“As a family, this has been good for us. We can take positives out of any negative situation because you get to spend a lot of time with each other. More time than I would’ve been able to if the lockdown hadn’t been on,” Fury told ESPN.
“We’ve done a lot of training workouts together and stuff. It’s grown the family closer.”
Fury put on a tremendous performance on Feb. 22 when he earned a seventh-round TKO victory in a rematch against Deontay Wilder, but within a month of that victory, boxing ground down to a standstill.
But even with almost no fights going on worldwide, the business of boxing moves forward. Even though Wilder invoked his contractually obligated opportunity at a third fight against Fury, negotiations to line Fury up to face Joshua (who has the WBA, IBF and WBO belts) to unify all of the heavyweight titles in late 2020 are underway — provided Wilder agrees to a step-aside agreement.
“I’m not really positive,” Fury said when asked whom he’d prefer to fight next, “because none of these fights are really relevant at the moment, are they? Because there’s no boxing, there’s no sport, nothing. Nothing’s going on. So to talk about boxing, or dream fights, you might as well fight fighters from the past because none of it is real, anyways.”
“I’m not really interested in boxing right now,” he said, ”because the most important thing is staying alive. There’s been a lot of pandemics like this throughout history that have killed a lot of people. It’s killed a lot of people already. This is bigger than me, this is bigger than boxing, bigger than sports. So when the world gets back right, again, then we’ll talk about entertaining the customers and the fans.”
Despite his observations about the current state of the sport, Fury still had his opinions regarding his potential heavyweight opponents. Fury still feels that Wilder — regardless of the results of their second fight — is still more of a threat to him than Joshua.
“One-hundred percent, Joshua’s not dangerous, at all. He’s like a big cuddly baby,” Fury said.
“Why would I be a believer when he got knocked spark out by Andy Ruiz? A last-minute replacement opponent … who turned up 300 pounds or whatever it is, he didn’t train, and Anthony Joshua couldn’t do any good with him in the rematch,” Fury said.
“He doesn’t have anything, he couldn’t hold a candle to ‘The Gypsy King,'” he said. “There’s only one heavyweight out there, there’s only one undefeated world champion. They’ve all fallen by the wayside, the fellow that hasn’t gotten beat, has knocked them out! I’m the only one! Me — ‘The Gypsy King,’ unbeatable, the untouchable, unbreakable champion.”
Both the state of the world and current negotiations have thrown many elements of Fury’s life into uncertainty. But one thing the 31-year-old Fury made clear, despite previously stating that he had just two bouts left in his career.
“I’m going to fight on till I’m 40 years old,” Fury said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and there isn’t much else to do anyways. So yeah, I may as well keep fighting. I don’t see anyone out there that can challenge me. I just flattened the best one out there. The toughest opponent out there is Deontay Wilder, and we all saw what happened to him the last time out.”
“I’m not really interested in boxing right now, because the most important thing is staying alive. There’s been a lot of pandemics like this throughout history that have killed a lot of people. It’s killed a lot of people already. This is bigger than me, this is bigger than boxing, bigger than sports.”
Tyson Fury
Armed with the “Kronk style” under the direction of Javan “Sugar” Hill, Fury implemented a much more aggressive attack that was brutally effective against Wilder in the rematch. Fury’s versatility makes him the man to beat in the heavyweight division.
“Me and ‘Sugar’ Hill had a good relationship going into camp, we worked on knocking him out, that was it. That’s the ‘Kronk style’ — knocking people out,” Fury said.
“As you’ve seen over the years, knocking people out, knocking people out. What I said from day one: that I’m going to knock Deontay Wilder out. Nobody believed it, it was what it was. I’m not trying to make people believe us. I couldn’t care if they believe, or don’t. But the thing is I’m beating them, something I’ve done for 12 years as a professional.”