By: Sean Crose
“Well guys,” WBC and lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury said in an Instagram message Monday, “it’s official. D-Day has come and gone. It’s already past 5 in the morning on Monday. No contract has been signed.” Fury was referring, of course, to a possible fight in December between himself and former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. Fury had given Joshua until Monday to officially sign a contract for a December takedown. Joshua and his team said they liked what they saw at Camp Fury, but needed more time to review the fine print. “Of course I’m going to sign a contract,” Joshua declared on social media. “It’s just with a few lawyers right now.”
Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for Fury, who now says the high-profile fight won’t take place, at least not in December. “I always knew you didn’t have the minerals to fight the Gypsy King,” Fury said. “Good luck with your career and your life.” Tough talk, no doubt, but it’s worth noting that Joshua’s camp believes negotiations are still ongoing. The same, believe it or not, also applies to Fury’s co-promoter, Frank Warren. “We’re trying to make it work,” Warren told talkSPORT, “and we had a good meeting today, so we’ll see what happens.”
If there’s one thing to say about the unpredictable Fury, it’s that he’s always unpredictable. The undefeated champion surprised a lot of people when, shortly after Joshua lost a rematch to Oleksandr Usyk late last summer, he offered to fight his fellow Englishman at a 60/40 split purse. He seemed too good to be true, and maybe he was. Still, Fury may decide to change his mind about the deadline if he learns Team Joshua is pretty serious about meeting him in the ring in December.
Frankly, a fight between Fury and Joshua has been a long time coming. In fact, last year the two Englishmen were ready to fight in the Middle East. However, a judge’s ruling caused the highly anticipated fight to fall through. Fury adhered to the judge’s decision and fought Deontay Wilder for the third time in a tremendous fight in which Fury knocked out the American. However, things didn’t go so well for Joshua, who ended up losing his heavyweight titles to Oleksandr Usyk. The Londoner has only fought once since then, again against Usyk, who outpointed him again several weeks ago.
