Rivals Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua bare teeth after blockbuster gets Rocky

Anyone who has seen Rocky V knows that bare-knuckle street fights are never the way to go when it comes to heavyweight boxing.

In what is, comfortably, the worst chapter of the franchise, Balboa brawls Tommy Gunn in his old Philadelphia neighbourhood. In the original script Sly Stallone’s much-loved character was meant to die in his wife Adrian’s arms but, alas, it was this dreadful film that killed him off for a good 16 years.

This week, Tyson Fury challenged Anthony Joshua to a similar rumble during a social media war of words, sparked by an arbitration that ruled in favour of Wilder-Fury III happening before these two finally meet.

Fury tweeted: ‘Tell you what, if I’m a fraud let’s fight this weekend bare knuckles till 1 man quits. Let’s put up 20 mill each!!!’

The mind boggles as to which location they would pick as their battleground. My guess is they’d spend years arguing over the street, then choose one in Saudi Arabia.

Bottom line? The fight that all of boxing has been waiting forever to see is again back in the balance. It is not an overstatement to say that finding an effective vaccine for a deadly global pandemic was easier than getting these two into a boxing ring.

Just last weekend, AJ’s man Eddie Hearn claimed the fight was agreed, and Fury backed that up on Instagram. Three days later, the same man wants a street fight and AJ is threatening to slap Tyson’s bald head.

Of course, when you strip away all the name calling and BS, this is all about the green folding stuff. It isn’t about the fans. If it was about the fans, they would have fought in the UK and not in Saudi Arabia. It’s about money. Always was, always has been, always will be.

A WhatsApp response from a friend of mine pretty much summed up this entire nonsense in three simple words.

Me: ‘FFS have you seen all the Fury AJ stuff?’

Him: ‘Boxing be boxing.’

As for who’s to blame, they can carve up the cake in whatever way they like. This isn’t the first time we’ve been here, so it’s just a case of ‘same s***, different day’.

Any hope of them meeting this summer relies on Deontay Wilder accepting a big enough wedge to disappear, and I wouldn’t bet on that, as it’s rarely in a boxer’s DNA to accept when they have had enough.

His new trainer Malik Scott has rubbished any idea of a pay-off.

‘Y’all dealing with a whole different type motherf***a over here. He want the blood, not that step-aside money. Retribution is upon us.’

So, it’s becoming more and more likely that we will get that third encounter between the Gypsy King and the Bronze Bomber, and while the first two were worth every second, a final instalment is likely one step too far for Wilder, who is still blaming everything from global warming to zombies for his last demolition.

As for Joshua, he could face the WBO’s mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk, which in itself is a tasty fight. Usyk is a former undisputed cruiserweight champion who we know well from his slaying of Tony Bellew and his outclassing of Derek Chisora, and while he will be an underdog against Joshua, you will do well to find a bookmaker offering you 3/1.

Both fights are perfectly agreeable, but we are being offered Rocky III and Rocky IV, when all anybody wants to watch is Rocky I.

When it does eventually happen, the promotional strapline should be, ‘Could somebody just ****ing punch somebody already?’ That just about sums up how most boxing fans feel about this latest misfire.

There’s still a chance that, by Monday, the big one will be on again but none of the sounds we are hearing right now are encouraging. I have a sinking feeling that we won’t see Joshua vs Fury this side of our booster jabs.

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