Tyson Fury’s latest comeback out of retirement ended in a victorious manner with a composed unanimous points win over Arslanbek Makhmudov before calling out a watching Anthony Joshua at ringside in the immediate aftermath.
Fury marked his return to the ring, four months after his latest retirement U-turn, with a dominant triumph over Makhmudov at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night.
The Gypsy King hadn’t fought since December 2024 when he was beaten for a second time by heavyweight rival Oleksandr Usyk.
But despite his inactivity, Fury’s boxing IQ proved too much for Makhmudov as he triumphed 120-108, 120-108 and 119-109 on the judges’ scorecards.
Tyson Fury calls out Anthony Joshua post-fight
After the win was confirmed, the 37-year-old set his sights on a September bout against British heavyweight rival Joshua next.
In what proved to be an awkward stand-off, Fury grabbed the microphone, called out Joshua and beckoned him into the ring, only to be met with silence as his long-term rival remained sat in his seat.
The face-off intended to light the fuse for the lucrative showdown between the two best British heavyweights of their generation, which had even been trailed by Saudi Arabia’s boxing powerbroker Turki Alalshikh in an interview earlier in the evening and was then confirmed by Netflix on social media, failed to materialise.
‘I challenge you, Anthony Joshua, to fight me next. Do you accept?” Fury said after more attempts to get Joshua into the ring failed.
Joshua, who appeared to film much of Saturday’s fight on his phone at ringside, initially seemed reluctant to engage, before replying: ‘I punched you up when we were kids and I’ll punch you up again. You aren’t going to tell me what to do, I’ve been chasing you for 10 years. I’m the boss, you work for me. I’m the landlord. You work for me.’
Fury responded: ‘You [Anthony Joshua] are next. You are getting knocked out. Believe it.’
Fury described the muted response as ‘a bit suspect, how he handled himself’, but Joshua, 36, later hinted that he might not yet be ready to agree the fight having been involved in a fatal car crash in December that killed two of his close friends.
‘I was in a serious incident. There’s real stuff happening in my life. I’m not ducking anyone. Once I’m 100 per cent, I’ll fight,’ said Joshua, whose victory over YouTube star Jake Paul is his only appearance in 19 months.
Fury fears that their plans could be derailed if Joshua opts for a warm-up before they finally meet after a decade of circling each other.
‘He’s had his problems. We all have. God knows I’ve had problems myself. I’ve attempted to kill myself before. So I’ve been through it. I’ve been up and down,’ he said in his post-fight press conference.
‘I’ve been one step out of the mental institution. We’ve all had problems and that’s life, unfortunately. If you’re in this game, you’re either a boxer or you’re not.
‘The problem is, taking interim fights in heavyweight boxing, you can get chinned by anybody. Even a journeyman can knock a good man out because they’re heavyweights. They’ve got power.
‘I never mentioned Anthony Joshua in the whole build-up to this fight or since his accident. I’ve given him the respect that he deserves and his space.
‘But he came here for the job and I asked him to do a fight and he should have got into the ring, but he didn’t give an answer. He didn’t want it. He didn’t look like he wanted it. He was just shell-shocked, didn’t know what to say.
‘Let’s get it on. It’s been 10 years in the making. And after all this time, there’s still uncertainty about if this fight’s going to happen next. Do I want it? Yes. But is it going to happen? I’ve no idea.’
