Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko: The biggest fight in recent history? Not with Tyson Fury on the scene
Joshua vs Klitschko is a brilliant fight, make no mistake of that. However, it is not the fight and that is because Fury is not in one of the corners
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Your support makes all the difference.There is a dreadful inconvenient truth attached to the far reaches of the glorious halo currently engulfing the fight at Wembley Stadium between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko next April and it is called Tyson Fury.
The planned fight could generate nearly fifty million pounds and could also change the very landscape of boxing for a long, long time.
So far the pair of prize fighters will fight for Joshua’s IBF heavyweight belt, the vacant WBA version and Klitschko’s personal favourite, the IBO version, which is also vacant, when an expected crowd of 80,000 spend in excess of 12 million quid at the creaking turnstiles.
However, it is a mad and sad fact that a version of the IBF, WBA and IBO belts are still in possession of the division’s very own excluded champion, Fury, at his home near Morecombe. They will stay on obstinate display until the time he is well enough and allowed to fight again in defence of what he quite rightly considers his trophies. He remains in recess, a sleeper waiting for a medical greenlight, a hearing or two to fall in his favour and a new sense of dedication – it is an unholy, some might say impossible, set of tasks.
It is too easy to forget that just over 12 months ago, in front of over 50,000 people in Dusseldorf, Fury performed like a boxing wizard to leave Klitschko in his magical slipstream, at times a giant in wonderment at the unexplained switch in his condition and following Fury’s punches like a hypnotised tree. Fury departed the ring with the three belts, most of which had been in Klitschko’s grasp on and off for fifteen years, and vanished into a dark wasteland. There was a fourth, the WBO, but that was also stripped and now lives behind a castle of protective marketing and matchmaking with Joseph Parker in New Zealand.
“They are still all my belts,” said Fury. “I won them in the ring, I won them against the man that had proudly won and defended them. That is the truth, the rest of this rubbish is fantasy.” They are also the belts he so publically squandered with a high-profile descent, a vicious plunge that is now over; Fury has a year to save his boxing life, having come so close in the last year to permanently erasing it.
This week in London the fight next April will be officially announced, celebrated and sanctioned. There will be news of ticket prices, timings, pay-per-view details, world sales and a walk on the Wembley pitch. It will be a staggering launch, Titanic in proportions compared to the other big fights that have taken place in Britain. It will look, sound and be sold, quite rightly, as British boxing’s richest fight and at the very core of the extraordinary event will be a novice with 18 fights and a man of 41 who will have been out of the ring for nearly 18 months. Who says magic is dead? There is no sleight of hand here, no con, but at some point there needs to be perspective attached to the colossal attraction.
It is possible that Fury has eroded any goodwill left in the hearts and minds of the British public, in a fall that was compounded by a stream of unpleasant tweets, a foolish cocaine slip and a disturbing series of mental health mishaps. At a time of enhanced sensitivity for people with disclosed mental issues, it remained open season on the big, thick gypsy boy and his retinue of brawlers. He is right to feel persecuted and this fight’s presentation as the salvation of the heavyweight division is an added insult after what happened last November in Dusseldorf. That fight was meant to be the salvation.
Joshua is the most exciting prospect in world boxing, the most marketable fighter in the world and he can really fight. He has not put a foot wrong during 18 brief ring appearances and next April he could take step one to becoming one of the wealthiest boxers in history. Big Wlad has been the dominant force for so long in a fractured and divided business, and he could so easily have enough left to beat Joshua. It is, make no mistake, a brilliant fight. However, it is not The Fight and that is because Fury is not in one of the corners.
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