Promoter Eddie Hearn remains hopeful of matching the winner of the rematch between WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk 19-0 (13) and Anthony Joshua 24-2 (22) with WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury 32-0-1 (23) before the end of the year.
The 33-year-old Fury announced his retirement after his sixth-round knockout victory over Dillian Whyte 28-3 (19) in a homecoming fight at Wembley Stadium in London, England last month. It was his first fight in the UK since 2018. Fury is yet to relinquish his WBC heavyweight crown.
Joshua, 32, lost his unified championship to Ukrainian southpaw Usyk, 35, on points at Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium in Tottenham, England last September. He enacted the immediate rematch clause in his contract with the bout expected to take place in the northern summer.
Fury and Joshua have long been linked but every time the fight looked like getting made a spanner was thrown in the works. Joshua lost his three belt to Andy Ruiz Jr in June 2019 which paused talks of a four belt unification clash and when it finally looked like the fight would come to fruition an independent arbiter ruled Fury owed old rival Deontay Wilder a third fight.
Joshua’s loss to Usyk left Fury with little choice but to face his mandatory Whyte instead.
Hearn, who promotes Joshua and has worked on a number of Usyk’s fights, remains eternally optimistic that he can get Fury back in the ring. If he can seal the deal, it will be one of the biggest coups in boxing.
“It’s very easy for Tyson to go back and go, ‘Look, I’m just gonna have some time now. Let me just think about what I’m going to do. I know I said that after the fight, but let me have some time’,” Matchroom Boxing boss Hearn told iFL TV.
“And [the WBC] shouldn’t strip him, of course not. He doesn’t have to retire, he doesn’t have to give [the WBC] a decision when his next fight is just yet. He’s just boxed.
“So everything is done properly, but, of course, we all know he’s not retiring. So I expect to see him fight the winner of Joshua-Usyk in December.”
The is no pressure on Fury to hand back his green belt to the WBC as he is not due another mandatory title defence until next April. WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman recently confirmed as much in an interview with Sky Sports.
“We have one year to have the next mandatory fight,” Sulaiman said. “At this moment, we will wait for the decision of Tyson Fury and then we will either do a series of fights – a boxing tournament – going into a final elimination. But at this time we’re going to wait because we don’t know the specific circumstances.”
