{"id":484494,"date":"2026-02-16T22:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484494\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T22:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:53:07","slug":"tyson-fury-admits-long-time-rival-anthony-joshuas-car-crash-provoked-boxing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484494\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury admits long-time rival Anthony Joshua’s car crash provoked boxing return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyson Fury said the deaths of two of long-time rival Anthony Joshua’s friends in a car crash in December prompted his return to boxing.<\/p>\n

Fury<\/a> will step back into the ring on April 11<\/a> after a 15-month absence to face Russian-born heavyweight Arslanbek Makhmudov<\/a> in a bout at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old retired after his second successive loss to Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> at the end of 2024 and went a calendar year without a fight before revealing his latest comeback on January 4.<\/p>\n

The announcement came a week after compatriot Joshua<\/a> was involved in a car crash in Nigeria which killed his close friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele.<\/p>\n

“Tomorrow might not ever come and I suppose the biggest turning point in this comeback for me was the tragedy that happened with Anthony Joshua,” Fury said on Monday.<\/p>\n

“You should never put things off until tomorrow, or next year, or next week because tomorrow is not promised to nobody.”<\/p>\n

Any plans for Fury and Joshua to finally fight in 2026 have been put on the back burner.<\/p>\n

And Fury, a former two-time world heavyweight champion, claimed he has also returned to the ring to bring back some glamour to the sport.<\/p>\n

“The truth of the matter is I came back for one reason only and that’s to make boxing great again,” added Fury.<\/p>\n

“Since I’ve retired for the fifth time over a year ago, boxing for me has gone on a downward slope and it’s become quite boring.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury said the deaths of two of long-time rival Anthony Joshua’s friends in a car crash in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-484494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}