Fury vs. Joshua Odds if it Happens
Much has been made over the course of last month and even into the opening week of October regarding the potential and apparently fleeting all-British heavyweight showdown between WBC champion, Tyson Fury, and former gold holder, Anthony Joshua. And as each day comes and goes, it appears one of the most anticipated fights in the sport’s history in the UK becomes even further from clarification.
Initially, Manchester-born puncher, Fury was receptive to a fight against Joshua despite the Olympian’s pair of successive losses to Ukrainian slickster, Oleksandr Usyk this year – with the former welcoming a potential end-of-year clash in Cardiff.
Fury himself had, however, announced his intentions to retire from professional boxing – as many a time before, most recently of which off the back of a thunderous TKO win against Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium back in April to retain his championship.
Yet to officially vacate his WBC heavyweight crown despite his claims that he is all but retired, Fury extended the olive branch to Matchroom Boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, as well as the aforenoted former British kingpin, Joshua – in the form of a Cardiff battle.
In the time since the initial offer from Fury to Joshua, a series of impromptu and unofficial “deadlines” have been imposed and seemingly passed by the former for Joshua to sign official paperwork for the fight.
Off the back of his pair of defeats against the above-mentioned, Usyk this year, Joshua is quite the comfortable betting underdog against Fury – with the former currently sat as a 5/2 betting underdog, while Fury finds himself as a clear favorite betinireland.ie/sports-betting/boxing at 3/10 at the time of publication.
The aforenoted, Hearn maintained that contracts were being trashed through by lawyers at the turn of the month, however, Fury has now since distanced himself from a fight, offering to fight the likes of Derek Chisora in a trilogy fight, as well as seemingly welcoming a fight against unlikely opponent, Mahmoud Charr.
As for Joshua, the Watford native is reportedly still targeting a return fight before the end of this year in a bid to snap a two-fight losing run against the previously mentioned, Usyk – with a December 17. bout in the works.
According to Tyson’s promoter, Top Rank leader, Bob Arum, his promoting counterpart, Hearn killed a matchup between the duo.
“He (Eddie Hearn) wanted to kill it because even as late as yesterday [Monday], if he’d have said let’s all get together and sit in a room and get everything finalised, it could have been done in a couple of hours,” Bob Arum told Sky Sports.
“I mean, really sad because I really believed both fighters wanted this to happen,” Arum continued. “The first issue was well, there’s different networks involved. So, there was a meeting held, and lo and behold, all the networks signed off and they found a way to do it.”
With the sport of boxing continuing its historic traditions of politics denying fan appealing fights at the moment, it remains to be seen if the door can stay ajar for a future all-British fight between Fury and Joshua.
