Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua trade verbal blows

Judging from the first days of 2021, the main boxing argument for the new year will remain the rivalry and the potential super-match between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. The two British heavyweight super-champions continue to trade verbal blows with Tyson Fury maintaining his coldness and sharp tongue while Joshua seems to become more colourful in his descriptive statements.

Tyson “Gipsy King” Fury (30-0-1, 21KOs) kicked off the new year by immediately launching messages of challenge to his compatriot rival Anthony “AJ” Joshua (24-1, 22KOs). The boxing world is now looking forward to a breathtaking match, arguably the greatest heavyweight fight in British boxing history.

However, let’s recap the latest heated exchange of words between the two heavyweight champions. Tyson Fury commenced the year arguing that Anthony Joshua has major self-esteem issues and that in his last two fights (against Andy Ruiz Jr. and Kubrat Pulev) he hasn’t shined as expected and his performance was just average. The Gypsy King affirmed that AJ has “a confidence problem”. And here it comes the best Tyson Fury when he mentioned that he will take “maybe in one, two rounds” to finish Anthony Joshua.

Actually, Tyson Fury had launched himself in similar forecasts also on the occasion of the rematch with Deontay Wilder, defeated at the seventh round. The third act with Wilder remained on hold due to the pandemic and was later permanently cancelled unilaterally by Tyson Fury. From then on, his attention was turned to compatriot Anthony Joshua.

For his part, AJ returned to the ring in London last December 12, overcoming in nine rounds the veteran Kubrat Pulev. Joshua himself at the end of December had spoken about his upcoming fight with Fury and had also brought to mind an old sparring session done with him in 2012. But the colorful part came out of the blue when Joshua mentioned that he wants to take his head off his shoulders”. Obviously, he was referring to Tyson Fury’s head and for a usually quiet and cold boxer like Joshua in previous interviews, this is big news. Hearing those threats from Deontay Wilder or other trash-talkers is normal, but Joshua… Is not that Tyson Fury starts to get under his skin… or in his mind?

Against Pulev, Joshua returned to win before the limit, after some time. In fact, Joshua’s last win by TKO/KO dated back to the fight against Alexander Povetkin, staged on September 22, 2018. Then came the first defeat in his career against Andy Ruiz Jr. (which was shocking to say the least), the rematch won in December 2019 in Saudi Arabia and, finally, the recent success against Kubrat Pulev. A score that still does not completely convince Fury. On the contrary, Tyson Fury, who is as good with words as with his fists, replied mentioning that people say a lot of things that they don’t back up later, so we’ll see. “I’ve never seen him take the head off any of the 22 fighters he’s faced”.

Tyson Fury continued saying that whatever happens next will be a defeat for Anthony Joshua. According to the Lineal Heavyweight champion, Joshua is going to lose either on the ring or off the ring for running away from Tyson Fury.