• Fury Against Whyte For April
Anthony Joshua will battle to regain his IBF/WBA/WBo heavyweight boxing titles from Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk in May, 2022, reports boxingnews24.com. Quoting promoter, Eddie Hearns, the report also revealed that Tyson Fury will defend his WBC heavyweight title against mandatory challenger, Dillian Whyte.
According to Matchroom Boxing promoter, Hearn, the schedule depended on him winning yesterday’s purse bid for the Fury vs. Whyte fight.
These excellent fights will lead to the winners facing each other later this year for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
This week, there were efforts to put together a step aside deal for Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) and Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) to step aside so that Fury and Usyk could meet for the undisputed championship in March or April.
“I think April 29 is the date where if we win the purse bid [for Tyson Fury vs. Dillian Whyte] that we have to do the fight by. So, we have to do the fight by then,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV.
“That’s Fury against Whyte. AJ, I think that can be a little bit later. That’ll be in May,” Hearn said for when Joshua will be fighting Usyk in their rematch.
According to Hearn, those plans went up in smoke when Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) threw a monkey wrench into the works by coming up with the quirky idea of taking a tune-up fight in March before fighting Usyk.
It was a request that came totally out of the blue, as Fury fought only three months ago against Deontay Wilder in a Fight of the Year type of match. The last thing Fury needs at this point is a tune-up.
If anything, Fury needs a long rest because he was severely hurt multiple times by Wilder and had to get off the deck twice to come back to win.
According to Hearn, Fury’s strange request for a tune-up in March wrecked the step aside deal. Now, Fury is taking an arguably riskier fight against Whyte, and he’s likely to take a lot more punishment against him than he would have had he agreed to the plan for him to face Usyk.
