Honorable Turki Alalshikh confirmed today that former WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will have the opportunity to fight Anthony Joshua next if he loses his December 21 rematch with WBA/WBC/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh.
The Winner Doesn’t Take It All
The old saying, ‘To the victor go the spoils,’ doesn’t work here with a rerun of Fury vs. Syk. Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) will have the option to fight Joshua if he wants to.
That will seriously demoralize the fight, it’s a double whammy [three-times if you count Francis Ngannou as a loss] Wrath will come against Joshua. Getting angry would be a sad idea in that situation, and I don’t think you want to continue.
“If Usyk wins [against Fury on December 21st]he deserves to choose big fights, and this will be his fight,” said Turki Alalshikh on the Stomping Ground YouTube channel when asked if Tyson Fury will still get the Anthony Joshua fight if he loses to Oleksandr Usyk on December 21.
Turki doesn’t say what “big fights” Usyk should get if he beats Fury a second time. You leave that part open. Are you saying that Usyk can take a trilogy match against Joshua and fight immediately?
“If he [Usyk] he chooses Joshua and Joshua accepts, we want to make this fight,” said Turki. “At the same time, we want to see Tyson and Joshua. Let’s see what Tyson has to say tonight [December 21st] what will he do and what will be the situation after the fight. Maybe you’ll want to continue. Maybe you will want to retire. You don’t know.
“We cannot control a fighter in his life. If he still wants to fight and give us a big fight on December 21, we definitely want to see him face Joshua. This will be huge for the fans and for boxing.”
If Fury repeats Usyk, what does it mean for him to fight Joshua? It would be painful at that point. Fury is already rich, with an estimated net worth of $140 million. It could be over $200+ million after facing Usyk in December, and he won’t need to keep fighting to earn a final payday against Joshua.
It will look bad if Joshua loses his fight against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on September 21. If Joshua chooses to fight the beaten Fury, it will take away any advantage in the fight between them.
However, Joshua will likely have too much pride to leave behind a loss against 26-year-old young gun Dubois to fight Fury. He will at least try to avenge the loss rather than leaving the place he met and fighting Fury for selfish purposes.
“Tyson is one of the greatest fighters of this generation. He has everything,” Turki said when asked if Fury is more enthusiastic now than before? “If he wanted to focus and do the work, many times he moved the work. For that, yes. It depends on the state of his life, on him, whether he wants to do it or not.”
Is Anger Really ‘Big’?
I don’t buy that Fury is one of the “greatest fighters of this generation” because his best wins in the last nine years of his career were against these fighters:
– Wladimir Klitschko: 39 years old
– Deontay Wilder: Need to say something?
– Dillian Whyte: British adventurer
– Dereck Chisora: See above
Those guys don’t make Fury the best of this generation in my book or top five. He beat a lot of ha-beens and British travelers. Unless we’re lowering the standard for what it means to be a “climber,” Fury doesn’t come close to that level with his win over that motley crew.
Fury can no longer be motivated like before because he showed that in his last two fights by going into them tense, looking like he hadn’t trained hard.
“The last time I saw him in London, he said if he didn’t show it in the Riyadh Season, he would stop,” said Turki.
I want to think that Fury will retire if he loses to Usyk on December 21st, but I have a feeling that if The Honorable raises $100 million under his nose, he’ll be back in the Joshua fight in a hot second.
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