KEY POINTS

  • Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are both eager to reclaim all the heavyweight belts
  • Fury has hit out at Joshua ahead of their hyped potential fight
  • Joshua insisted that he will outperform Oleksandr Usyk

Tyson Fury has been spicing things up in his rivalry with Anthony Joshua.

After Fury dismantled his ultimate nemesis Deontay Wilder, he set his sights on reclaiming all the heavyweight belts. This would mean that if he manages to beat his mandatory challenger Dillian Whyte, Fury will take on the winner between Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk.

Despite being on course to face different opponents, a bout between Fury and Joshua is still generating buzz. In fact, Fury’s former opponent Derek Chisora recently predicted that Joshua will “blast Fury out.” As expected, “The Gypsy King” didn’t appreciate it and hit out at Joshua in his response.

"This is a message to Derek Chisora. I've just seen that you said. You think AJ would blast me out,” Fury said on Instagram Live. “Never in a million years.”

"If the biggest puncher [Wilder] in history couldn't blast me out and Wladimir Klitschko couldn't blast me out, a big old bodybuilder [Joshua] can't blast me out, my friend,” he added.

Fury went on to rant about how Joshua underperformed and lost all the heavyweight belts to Usyk in the process.

Still champ: WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury of Great Britain celebrates his 11th-round knockout victory over US challenger Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas
Still champ: WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury of Great Britain celebrates his 11th-round knockout victory over US challenger Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas AFP / Robyn Beck

For Fury, it was extremely disappointing to have witnessed his compatriot succumb to an unworthy champion in Usyk.

“I cannot believe that AJ has gone and given Ukraine all the heavyweight belts back, after all my hard work of getting them,” Fury, who once held all the belts, exclaimed. “You big useless dosser! You’ve let a little steroid man come up from middleweight and set about you and take all your belts. It is going to have to take a real British Lancaster Bomber, like me, to go and relieve the useless little steroid head of the belts and get them back to Britain.”

“You useless dossers! Bring them to me, the Gypsy King,” he continued. “Bring them to me and I will put them in their place and relieve them of the belts again.”

Joshua, meanwhile, had already said earlier this month that his plan is to prove naysayers wrong when he makes his ring return.

According to the Brit, after outboxing Usyk in their rematch, he will shift his focus back to his botched showdown with Fury and regain supremacy once more.

“I wanted to box with [Usyk] him for 12 rounds and show, because there was always this stigma saying that I can't box — that I was a big, stiff bodybuilder,” Joshua admitted. “It didn’t go my way.”

“He won nine rounds, I won three,” he continued. “In the next fight, if I win four more rounds then I will win. Let me simplify that matter. Then I'll get onto the road to being the undisputed champion again."

Anthony Joshua
Anthony Joshua Getty Images | Anthony Joshua