Tyson Fury has lifted the lid on an old sparring session with Anthony Joshua from his rival’s days as an Olympic hopeful.
Joshua eventually went on to win gold at the London 2012 Games. Prior to that, Fury says a training match-up between the pair led to them squaring up.
Fury says he wanted to trade blows for real but his request was turned down by Joshua at the time.
“We’ve had a spar before,” Fury told Showtime regarding what happened at the time. “He was an Amateur boxer at the time. He had a good couple of rounds. Then I started hitting him around the body.
“He was like this, lifting his legs up in the corner. There were ten people in the gym who saw him do it.
“I’m there with my hands down and flicking him, leaning out of the way. He’s coming forward with big swings. How’s he going to hit me? I said: ‘Go on then, put one on me, I’ll stand still for you’. He just can’t win. It was what it was.”
On Joshua making offers to fight through promoter Eddie Hearn, Fury added: “He seems pretty spirited, doesn’t he? But when I stood face-to-face with him and said, ‘Do you want to get outside?’ His a*** started flapping. He s*** himself!”
“It doesn’t matter what weight I was at the time. I wasn’t in shape but I’d have taken him outside and kicked his c*** right in for him.
“If a man said that to me – I don’t care if I was unfit or not – he’d be outside and punched. We’d have had to have a fight. Simple. I don’t care who he is or what he is.
“But I said that to him and he didn’t want to know.”
SUPER FIGHT
A British heavyweight super-fight seems no closer to happening as Fury concentrates on his mega-money deal with ESPN.
Fighting Tom Schwarz is first on the agenda next month before a potential rematch with Deontay Wilder later this year or early next.
AJ has Andy Ruiz Jr. to contend with on June 1 in his United States debut. A host of mandatories are set to kick in thereafter.
