Anthony Joshua's rematch with Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia represents another fork in the road moment for the former heavyweight champion. On the eve of a potentially career-altering fight, The Sporting News looks back on the four biggest moments that have come to define the former heavyweight champion's career and ponders "what if?" with the 32-year-old boxing superstar.
Welcome to the Anthony Joshua multiverse.
- Part I: Tyson Fury's initial retirement
- Part II: AJ's upset loss to Andy Ruiz Jr.
- Part III: What if Deontay Wilder said yes to AJ fight
The careers of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua have been intricately intertwined for the better part of the last decade. You can’t bring up one name without the other coming right behind it.
And this was evidenced in the first part of this series where we explained how Fury’s departure from boxing after beating Wladimir Klitschko had a direct effect on Joshua’s career. At this moment, Fury’s talk of retirement is dominating headlines and is happening right when Joshua is preparing for his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
Coincidence? Probably not.
The constant tease of a showdown between the two has been exhausting but there’s a universe where this fight would have happened already. Actually, the two were set to face each other in 2020 until the COVID pandemic derailed those plans. Of all the canceled events due to the pandemic, none casts a shadow larger than Fury-Joshua.
A month after Fury ran roughshod over Deontay Wilder in February 2020, the world as we knew changed as coronavirus swept the globe and the sporting world was ground to a halt. Before that happened, Fury and Wilder were tentatively scheduled to have their third fight in the summer of 2020. But the pandemic and an injured Wilder forced the fight to be postponed. Joshua was slated to defend his titles against Kubrat Pulev on June 20 with the idea that the two winners would square off the determine an undisputed heavyweight champion in what was certain to be the biggest fight in British boxing history.
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COVID put a halt to those plans as Joshua wouldn’t face Pulev until December 12 at Wembley Arena in front of only 1,000 fans due to restrictions from the pandemic. Joshua retained his titles with a brutal ninth-round TKO and immediately challenged Fury. Eddie Hearn suggested in March 2021 that Fury and Joshua had agreed to a two-fight deal. However, the Fury-Wilder trilogy had not been completed and Fury balked at the Joshua fight being a done deal. Later that summer, an agreement was struck and Hearn went as far as saying the fight was “as done as it can be” with August 14 being the date and Saudi Arabia set as the location.
Enter Deontay Wilder.
Sidelined with an injury since February 2020, Wilder was able to use the pandemic as a means to heal. Because of the time that elapsed, Wilder was able to get healthy which allowed him to re-activate his rematch clause. Twenty-four hours after Fury announced he’d be facing Joshua, an arbitrator ruled in favor of Wilder for a trilogy bout and pushed the Fury-Joshua fight off the table.
Joshua would have to turn his attention to former undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk while Fury would complete his trilogy with Wilder. Fury got the job done while Wilder did not.
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Fury went on to stop Wilder in a fantastic heavyweight clash on October 9, 2021, but Joshua fell short against Usyk several weeks prior, losing his heavyweight titles again.
But what if the pandemic didn’t happen or Wilder decided to accept a fee to step aside?
Joshua and Fury would have clashed at some point between 2020 and 2021 and an undisputed heavyweight champion would have been determined over the course of two massive fights. Considering how Fury managed to pull himself up off the canvas against Wilder, it’s hard to believe that Joshua would have been able to knock “The Gypsy King” out.
But Joshua is certainly a better overall boxer than Wilder and the two giants would have engaged in an epic war where the result would have been truly up for grabs. What we do know is that this conversation about an undisputed heavyweight champion would have been put to rest.
But what would have happened to Wilder and Usyk?
Usyk had already started his journey to heavyweight in 2019 and had set himself up to be Joshua’s mandatory for the WBO title by beating Derek Chisora in October 2020. That path would have likely been intact but with Wilder owed a rematch, he would have been first in line to get a crack at Joshua or Fury. In the interim, Wilder may have ended up fighting Andy Ruiz while Usyk might have been tasked with a showdown against Dillian Whyte. It’s almost a certainty that boxing politics would get in the way and the undisputed champion would be dissolved by an unhappy sanctioning body.
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As for Joshua and Fury, the winner would have had the boxing world in the palm of their hand. We would have been robbed of one of the greatest heavyweight fights in recent memory because that epic encounter between Fury and Wilder would have had to wait. Then again, Fury-Wilder 3 or Joshua-Fury 1 for the undisputed heavyweight championship would have been massive.
Fury and Joshua continue to orbit each other as the boxing world hopes we finally get to see them slug it out. But first, Joshua will have to avenge his loss to Usyk. If Joshua can’t get by Usyk, we may never see the ultimate heavyweight showdown that is years in the making.
