Tyson Fury’s next bout will be a third showdown with Derek Chisora, not a matchup with Anthony Joshua, Fury’s co-promoter Frank Warren told IFL TV on Monday.
IFL TV and ESPN reported that the heavyweight fight would be held Dec. 3 at a British location.
“We’ve been struggling to get an opponent, and we’ve got the highest-ranked opponent which is Derek Chisora,” Warren told IFL TV.
Fury won a unanimous decision over Chisora in 2011, then prevailed in a rematch three years later when Chisora’s corner threw in the towel after 10 rounds of a scheduled 12-round bout.
Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs), a 34-year-old England native, holds the WBC heavyweight championship belt. Since the lone blemish on his record, a draw with Deontay Wilder in December 2018, Fury has won five consecutive fights, two of them against Wilder (in February 2020 and October 2021).
Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs), a 32-year-old England native, is a former heavyweight champion who has lost three of his past five fights, including each of his past two.
Chisora (33-12, 23 KOs), a 38-year-old Brit who was born in Zimbabwe, lost three consecutive fights before beating Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev in July.
Warren told IFL TV, “We were just trying to find someone (for Fury to fight) and it’s been very difficult. What it’s all about is that Tyson will have had one fight in a year and we always expected the fight in December would have been (former heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine), but Usyk wasn’t available.
“Now, I hope, that looks like some time (Fury will face Usyk) in February. Tyson wants to fight before then and get out, we want to get him out and that’s where we’re at.
“I’m not going to disregard Chisora, but if (Fury) comes through that, then we’ve got the big one (vs Usyk). That’s really what it’s all been about this year.”
Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), 35, beat Chisora in October 2020 before consecutive wins over Joshua in September 2021 and August 2022.
Regarding a possible Fury-Joshua match, Warren told IFL TV, “I genuinely thought this fight was going to happen. Nobody picked the phone up to us. At the end of the day, they just didn’t want it.”
–Field Level Media