ANTHONY JOSHUA once revealed that Tyson Fury ‘randomly’ phones him to tell the 2012 Olympic champion he is going to ‘knock him out’.
The pair were in talks to fight in an undisputed title decider in the summer, until talks broke down at the final hour.
But behind the scenes, the trash talk was already underway, with Fury – who kept his WBC with a stunning 11th round won over Deontay Wilder – pranking AJ with random calls.
Joshua told Behind the Gloves in 2019: “He’s an interesting character.
“Tyson will call me randomly on the phone and he will be like, ‘have a little laugh and I will have a little laugh’.
“Then I will say I’m going to knock you out, then he will say ‘shut up I’ll knock you out.”
“That’s just me and Tyson, through and through the respect’s there but we’re fighting men.”
When asked if he and Fury are friends, Joshua was quick to reply: “Not friends, not friends, not friends but there’s a mutual respect there, I respect the man, he’s done his thing.”
And Joshua, who suffered defeat to Oleksandr Usyk and is now set to rematch him, said he would love to fight the Gypsy King one day.
He said: “He’s a fighting man, he started at the age of 12, I started at the age of 18, I didn’t do nothing else before.
“I used to play a bit of football in the local area but when it came to boxing, that’s where my heart is attached to, I love this sport and I’d love to fight him one day.”
AJ’s patience was worn thin when Fury said he would quit if he lost the rematch to Andy Ruiz Jr.
The Mexican-American shocked the boxing world on June 1 at Madison Square Garden in New York City when he knocked out Joshua in the seventh round, picking up the Englishman’s WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight world titles.
Before Joshua’s victory, Fury told IFL TV: “If you can’t beat Andy Ruiz Jr, you can’t do anything to Tyson Fury or Deontay Wilder. Or any other decent heavyweight in the world.
Tyson will call me randomly on the phone and he will be like, ‘have a little laugh and I will have a little laugh’. Then I will say I’m going to knock you out, then he will say ‘shut up I’ll knock you out.
Anthony Joshua in 2019
“If he can’t beat Andy Ruiz Jr in the rematch, he’s finished – DONE, finished, goodnight, bye-bye.
“If he can’t beat Ruiz in the rematch he needs to retire – simple as, forget about it, give it up as a bad job.
“He’s done well out of it, he’s had a few quid, he’s won a world title before and everything else that goes with it so fair play to him.”
But Joshua hit back, saying Fury does not have the right to say when he retires because he was not there at the beginning when he started in boxing.
Joshua told IFL TV: “Who is he to talk? Did he help me get into boxing to tell me when I should leave at? No one can tell me when to retire except for me.
“That’s how I look it. Unless you were the one to take me into boxing like my old man was the one that took me down to the gym.
“And if he said, ‘son, I think you should retire,’ if no one’s helped me get into it no one should tell me when to get out of it.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
