Hearn: No Panic From Joshua Over Fury Retirement, Bakole In Africa Or Wilder In America Among Options
Jan 14, 2025
2 min read
Boxing fans have been left hanging on the words of a Tyson Fury retirement once again, but Anthony Joshua certainly isn't. Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) sent shockwaves through the sport on Monday afternoon by announcing his exit from the sport on social media...
Boxing fans have been left hanging on the words of a Tyson Fury retirement once again, but Anthony Joshua certainly hasn't.
Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) sent shockwaves through the sport on Monday afternoon by announcing his exit from the sport on social media, despite recent chatter about a mega-fight with his Brit heavyweight rival Joshua finally coming to fruition.
Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs), said at The Ring awards last week: "It's a fight [Joshua vs Fury] I want to see, because I'm a fan of boxing, so I want to get that fight underway.
"When I'm in the local gym everyone is asking me, and the reason I decided to do some interesting stuff [on social media] is because I haven't got many years ahead of me. I've had more years behind me."
Whether boxing fans believe Fury or not, his retirement has momentarily poured cold water on a potential summer showdown at a stadium in England.
Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn has been aching to make a fight between Joshua and Fury for years and talked the bout up once again following the latter's rematch defeat to Oleksandr Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) in December.
Neither Hearn nor Joshua are panicking about what may be next for the Watford-born heavyweight, who will also likely struggle in any negotiating efforts to fight the winner of Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker on February 22nd.
"I think Fury has been in some big fights, I don't think he's afraid of Joshua," Hearn told Seconds Out. "He's coming off two defeats, I should think he's very down at the moment, AJ was very down after getting beat.
"I haven't spoken to AJ about it yet. We've heard it before. We're not going to start gossiping about it, we can't control it.
"So we'll go back into training camp and [Fury] will either come out of retirement and fight AJ in the summer, or he won't.
"We're going to fight again whatever happens. It's not like if Fury retires and we don't get Dubois we're retiring. AJ wants to fight, he's still in love with the sport.
"The fights that really get Joshua up for it are Fury and the winner of Dubois vs Parker, but it doesn't mean he won't get up for the other fights.
"When [Martin] Bakole called him out the other day, that was kind of good for AJ. He would be up for fighting Bakole, he's up for fighting anyone.
"But we have to look at the really big fights for him, we don't want him going out and fighting a really tough fight for no commercial benefits. I wouldn't be doing my job.
"Bakole in Africa, Dillian Whyte in London, [Deontay] Wilder in America, the winner of [Agit] Kabayel against [Zhilei] Zhang [are options]."
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