TYSON FURY HAS laid the gauntlet down to Anthony Joshua, claiming he could beat the heavyweight champion with one hand tied behind his back and no warm-up.
Joshua knocked Wladimir Klitschko out in front of 90,000 spectators at Wembley Stadium on Saturday to add the WBA (Super) and IBO titles to his IBF belt.
Fury won those titles, as well as the WBO prize, when he beat Klitschko on points in November 2015, ending the Ukrainian’s decade-long rule over the division, but the Manchester-born fighter never defended his belts due to personal issues, and was stripped of his titles last year.
Joshua called Fury out after his breakthrough victory at Wembley, but that holds no fear for a man who believes he remains the premier heavyweight on the planet.
Fury told Sky Sports: “He [Joshua] showed a lot in that fight. He showed he can get dropped and come back, which is what champions are made of. He showed he can recover from taking big shots.
“There’s only one fight out there, the biggest fight in the world and everyone knows that. It is the heavyweights. It is me and AJ, no one else. It is the only one the world wants to see and I am here, I am the lineal champion, I am still number one in the world and everybody knows that.
“We all saw [Joshua's career] had a life and death situation against Klitschko, but Klitschko couldn’t land a glove on me. Styles do make fights but I am sure I can beat AJ with one arm tied behind my back.”
Fury went on to boast: “I don’t even need a warm-up if he wants this. I have been out of the ring as long as Klitschko but the difference is, I am not 41, I am 28. AJ did really well to come back but I am not 41 or getting old. He is just a pumped-up weightlifter but [Klitschko] couldn’t land one of those of those hooks on me, at all.”
Great stuff what a great achievement. This 7s team should be talked about more their a credit to the country. Well done
Does it really generate a positive buzz?.Ireland’s 15′s team has been decimated to prioritise the sevens team. The fifteen’s game is what the Irish public actually see and we’ve seen the car crash it’s become.
Let’s face it, like the men’s team in the last Olympics, people will care about it for a couple of days and then go back to ignoring it.
So we’ll done to the squad but I’d still much prefer to see the likes of Parsons and Flood playing serious rugby for Ireland’s 15s team and trying to improve them rather than seeing them every four years in the Olympics.
@Jim O’Connor: would help if RTÉ broadcast the games
@Jim O’Connor: maybe the IRFU have done some research and have found that 7’s is a more attractive form of rugby for young women and girls ?? If you wanted to grow the game perhaps they think this is method to do it? Don’t know, just a theory
@Bert far: Would you give it a rest.
Brilliant!!! And puts the dismal 6nations 15’s performances into perspective- when you lose players of this quality to 7’s it was always going to weaken a 15’s team that was already behind the curve Vs the competition
Was Aoibheann O’Reilly playing?
Yawn.