Offer will be made for ‘huge’ Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua showdown

An offer will be made for Tyson Fury to fight Anthony Joshua, regardless of the outcome of Fury’s rematch with Oleksandr Usyk – as long as Joshua defeats Daniel Dubois.

Fury and Usyk fight again, for the WBA, WBO and WBC heavyweight titles, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 21.

Usyk became the first to defeat the 36-year-old Fury when in May he earned a split decision. By the time they fight again, Joshua and Dubois will have contested Dubois’ IBF title at Wembley Stadium on September 21.

If the rematch between Fury and Usyk remains the most significant in the heavyweight division, a fight between Fury and Joshua, 34, has represented the biggest in British boxing for even longer.

Turki Alalshikh of the General Entertainment Authority is overseeing both Dubois-Joshua and Usyk-Fury II and, aware of the appeal of Fury-Joshua, told talkSPORT: “For the business, of course, it will be a huge fight if Joshua wins.

“His third time [winning] a world title and [after] the result of Usyk versus Fury it will be a huge fight. But you don’t know about the future. Imagine Tyson after the fight with Usyk wants to retire.

“I will give him the offer, but if he refuses, what can I do? First of all, Dubois has a very big chance and it is not easy. I think it is a difficult fight for Joshua and a dangerous fight for Joshua.

“If Usyk wins, still I want to see Fury versus Joshua if they accept. I will not try to do the third fight [between Usyk and Joshua] before having Fury versus Joshua.

“I think Joshua will win [against Dubois] but you don’t know. I picked Deontay Wilder against Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang, and he lost. This is boxing, especially the heavyweights.

“But I want to see Fury versus Joshua and the world wants to see Fury versus Joshua.”

Alalshikh’s plans will likely frustrate Ben Davison, the trainer of Joshua and former trainer of Fury who has been vocal about his desire for Joshua to fight Usyk for a third time, following two defeats.

The Saudi Arabian regardless has wider plans for boxing, which include attempting to reduce the cost of pay-per-views to viewers to less than £20 in the UK and less than $20 in the US, and also, ambitiously, to introduce a boxing league to challenge the “crazy” number of world titles in existence. There are 17 weight divisions, and four sanctioning bodies whose titles are recognised as “world titles”.

“We have a plan for the future to have something like a league,” he continued. 

“We don’t discuss about the belts until now. But in my opinion around 68 world champions is a crazy number.”