Apr 17, 2026, 06:23 AM ETAnthony Joshua and Tyson Fury might finally fight this year.\u00a0Photo by RINGO CHIU,FAYEZ NURELDINE\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie expects Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury to finally fight in 2026 — but would happily share the ring with them if no deal can be struck.<\/p>\n
An eagerly-anticipated domestic battle between the two former world champions is in the works again and Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn this week declared he was “pretty sure” they would finally cross paths this year.<\/p>\n
It has been a long time in the making but Fury’s exchange with Joshua at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night ramped up the excitement over the blockbuster bout.<\/p>\n
Tyson Fury, left, calls out Anthony Joshua after defeating Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.\u00a0Photo by Mark Robinson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ahead of his own fight in Paris against Tony Yoka on April 25, Okolie told the Press Association: “Everything screams that it’s going to happen.<\/p>\n
“They have sort of exhausted all of the top boys, so the only ones left are themselves and maybe [Deontay] Wilder.<\/p>\n
“Other than that, it is just really hard fights against guys who might not get paid as much to fight, so they might [finally] fight each other now.”<\/p>\n
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However, Okolie was happy to put his name forward as a potential candidate to take on either Queensberry stable-mate Fury or Joshua if no agreement was finalised.<\/p>\n
Joshua inspired fellow Olympian Okolie to take up the sport, while Fury is under the same promotional banner, but the former cruiserweight and bridgerweight world champion is up for any challenge in the blue-riband division.<\/p>\n
“It is not a team sport. There is no one in the world I wouldn’t box,” Okolie added.<\/p>\n
“Whether it is AJ, Tyson Fury, or Moses [Itauma], whoever, there are no friends in the industry.<\/p>\n
“We can all be friendly and whatever and once I retire. There are some people I would be friends with, but up until then, there is always that feeling that, ‘we could go’ and that’s how I feel.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 17, 2026, 06:23 AM ETAnthony Joshua and Tyson Fury might finally fight this year.\u00a0Photo by RINGO CHIU,FAYEZ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-610021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}