TALKS ARE UNDERWAY for a blockbuster fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua to be held at Croke Park, with Katie Taylor also featuring on the card.<\/p>\n
Fury reiterated on Wednesday ahead of Saturday\u2019s return from retirement against Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that he wanted to face fellow British heavyweight Joshua before the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
The former world champions have almost crossed paths on several occasions in an eagerly-anticipated \u2018Battle of Britain\u2019 and an agreement for this year had been close before Joshua took a step back from the sport after a car crash which resulted in the death of two close friends in December.<\/p>\n
However, with Joshua back training and present in London for Derek Chisora\u2019s defeat to Deontay Wilder on Saturday, the 36-year-old looks ready to resume his career and the stars could align for a clash with Fury.<\/p>\n
Key figures at Croke Park are in dialogue over a potential fight between Fury and Joshua, with Katie Taylor\u2019s team also involved in negotiations about her potential involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real hope is that we will get Tyson Fury here later on in the year,\u201d Croke Park stadium chief executive Peter McKenna told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be such a world-billing event that we would be able to facilitate a Katie Taylor fight here. A lot of stars need to align. Katie\u2019s manager needs to agree, Katie\u2019s promoter needs to agree, Tyson Fury\u2019s promoter needs to agree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very confident that all three are coming to the sense that this is one of Ireland\u2019s greatest sporting athletes and it would be such a \u2018wow\u2019 to have her here and for her to finish her career here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A potential spanner in the works would be if Joshua wanted a \u2018warm-up\u2019 fight before any clash with Fury and Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn speculated this week that Wilder could be an option.<\/p>\n
Fury, 39, issued a warning to Joshua that it should be now-or-never, especially given he will end a 16-month exodus from the ring on Saturday against bear-wrestling Russian Makhmudov.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fight was supposed to happen so many times over the last 10 years, but then someone has had one more fight in between and someone has got knocked out or injured,\u201d Fury said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should get this fight on as soon as possible in case something happens in between.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that in heavyweight boxing anything can go wrong, there are no easy fights. And if you get knocked upside down, it\u2019s finished, it\u2019s done. I want it as the fight next and I\u2019m sure AJ feels the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cForget Wilder, the man is a shell of himself. Forget anyone else. Let me get through Saturday and then we will do the fight before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been out of the ring longer than he has, 16 months out of the ring. Let\u2019s do it, let\u2019s dance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALKS ARE UNDERWAY for a blockbuster fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua to be held at Croke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1812,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-390932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}