by Steve Bunce
Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko is a brilliant fight, make no mistake of that. However, it is not the fight and that is because Fury is not in one of the corners
There is a dreadful inconvenient truth attached to the far reaches of the glorious halo currently engulfing the fight at Wembley Stadium between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko next April and it is called Tyson Fury.
The planned fight could generate nearly fifty million pounds and could also change the very landscape of boxing for a long, long time.
So far the pair of prize fighters will fight for Joshua’s IBF heavyweight belt, the vacant WBA version and Klitschko’s personal favourite, the IBO version, which is also vacant, when an expected crowd of 80,000 spend in excess of 12 million quid at the creaking turnstiles.
However, it is a mad and sad fact that a version of the IBF, WBA and IBO belts are still in possession of the division’s very own excluded champion, Fury, at his home near Morecombe. They will stay on obstinate display until the time he is well enough and allowed to fight again in defence of what he quite rightly considers his trophies. He remains in recess, a sleeper waiting for a medical greenlight, a hearing or two to fall in his favour and a new sense of dedication – it is an unholy, some might say impossible, set of tasks.
It is too easy to forget that just over 12 months ago, in front of over 50,000 people in Dusseldorf, Fury performed like a boxing wizard to leave Klitschko in his magical slipstream, at times a giant in wonderment at the unexplained switch in his condition and following Fury’s punches like a hypnotised tree. Fury departed the ring with the three belts, most of which had been in Klitschko’s grasp on and off for fifteen years, and vanished into a dark wasteland. There was a fourth, the WBO, but that was also stripped and now lives behind a castle of protective marketing and matchmaking with Joseph Parker in New Zealand. . .
To read the full piece from The Independent, click here.