Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua believes that there are two fights that would complete his career resume. After knocking out Robert Helenius back in August, Joshua’s second victory of the year, Joshua has been searching for fights to stay busy and complete his goal of fighting three times in 2023.
For a while, it looked like a clash with former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder was on the cards. As has been reported ad nauseam, those plans fell through when the finances that were expected from Skill Challenge Entertainment weren’t available.
If the two giants are to meet, Eddie Hearn has made it clear that the earliest expectation should be March or April 2024, and Joshua would likely accept a stay-busy fight to close the year.
“If I don’t fight Tyson Fury or Deontay Wilder, one of those two, then yes,” Joshua responded when asked whether his career would feel incomplete if a Wilder or Fury fight cannot be secured. “But I’m not waiting around until I’m 40. I can’t drag my career out waiting. In between waiting, I will have to do more fights, more training camps, more pressure.”
With Joshua’s intentions clear, Fury, in a separate interview, shared the following thoughts on Joshua.
“I don’t really care what he says, he’s a bum in my opinion. He’s just a big bum dosser who’s been knocked out and had three losses. You can’t even compare him to me anymore, it’s not even a fight, I don’t even look forward to fighting him, it’s not a fight anymore. I’m not interested. The bubble has been burst. It’s not so much interesting for me to beat AJ anymore. He’s already been beat, he’s been spanked by Usyk twice and knocked out by a fat man so it’s not of my interest to beat him,” Fury explained.
“I’m fighting a guy who’s in his prime who’s a champion, who’s bigger than him, stronger than him and who’s a bigger knockout puncher than him in Ngannou. Get to the back of the queue. The fight is off the cards, it’s gone, dead. The fight was off the cards when he got beat.”
Despite those sentiments, it’s highly likely that a matchup between Fury and Joshua would do well in terms of sparking fan interest and selling pay-per-views. For now, as Joshua put it, he will need to do more fights and more training camps, because Fury’s hands are tied for the time being with Ngannou and Usyk, potentially twice, in the queue.