By: Sean Crose
While going through my articles for Boxing Insider Over the past year, I’ve been reminded of how important the potential pair of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua means. To put it bluntly, it just makes sense that it would be a big deal. Fury owns the WBC and online heavyweight titles… and his British compatriot Joshua owns all the other major titles in the league. In other words, it will be a fight for the first undisputed heavyweight championship in years. Furthermore, it will be the first such defining match in the era of the super heavyweights, and the death knell for the career future of all the underweight heavyweights. the size of NBA stars.
The war, of course, never happened. Having a schedule going down in the Middle East, Joshua-Fury failed at the last minute. That seemed like a blow to the big guy’s department. Instead of spotting a new undisputed champion, fans will be stuck watching Joshua effortlessly take down former heavy cruiser Oleksandr Usyk, while Fury goes on to once again have an easy night at the office in front of Deontay Wilder. It just seems so sad. Until it stops looking sad. Usyk, thanks to his boxing class, defeated Joshua, thus walking out of the ring with the title Joshua already owned. Then, Fury finally had to get up from the carpet to defeat Wilder in an absolute fight.
I’ll just point it out and say it – things ended up better, or almost better, at heavyweight in 2021 than they would have had Joshua and Fury actually go on. For one thing, it looks like Joshua and Usyk will have a rematch in 2022. It’s a pretty fitting matchup when one considers the fact that Joshua has previously shown he can come back from a successful defeat. . Will he really be able to master the walking and talking skill set known as Usyk? It’s a question we’re eager to answer – at least that’s the case with serious fans.
And Fury? Well, he’s still the linear and WBC champion. Now, he is also considered the big man of the division – no pun intended – not the undisputed champion, but a big man. Combine that with him and Wilder entering a legal classics bout last fall and 2021 seems to have ended pretty well for the weight class, thank you very much.
