Tyson Fury slammed by boxing pundits and fans for ditching Anthony Joshua fight in favour of Manuel Charr
Tyson Fury has been widely slammed by boxing pundits and fans for how his proposed fight with Anthony Joshua broke down and his decision to turn to Manuel Charr instead.
The WBC champion set Joshua’s camp an ultimatum on Friday night, insisting if the deal could not be done before his self-imposed deadline of 5pm on Monday then he would walk away from the blockbuster all-British bout at the Principlaity Stadium in Cardiff on December 3.
Television executives from BT Sport and streaming service DAZN were scheduled to meet on Monday, with Joshua’s team having already verbally accepted Fury’s offer of a 60-40 purse split, but the Gypsy King ran out of patience and called it all off during an expletive-ridden Instagram post.
The unbeaten Fury (32-0-1) has built a huge fan base down the years but the boxing world are seemingly growing tired of his antics, which include two short-lived retirements this year, and impatient demands over a fight that everyone still wants to see happen despite Joshua suffering back-to-back defeats to Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury has since praised the largely unknown Charr, who isn't even ranked in the world's top 50, for "having fire and desire" to call him out and wrote on the German-based fither's social media: "Fought some of the best and now stepping up again. Get in there Charr.”
Diamond Boy, 37, was stopped in round three of a world title fight with Vitali Klitschko way back in 2012 and the seventh against Alexander Povetkin in 2014 while it's been five years since he beat a ranked opponent - Alexander Ustinov in November 2017.
A Fury-Charr fight is far from what the people want to see and to say it lacks PPV appeal is quite some understatement.
Johnny Nelson, a high-profile pundit with Sky Sports, said: "It’s got to the stage now where both parties have said ‘I want this fight’ and if this fight doesn’t happen, the buck stops with the fighters. Will the fight happen? Tyson Fury is slowly losing verbal credibility, because of the things he’s saying and not saying.
“You could laugh and joke at it, at first, and say, ‘You know Tyson, (it is) good (that) he’s not retired’, but now the things he’s saying are riling the hopes of a nation. To say, ‘This big fight is happening’ and then to say, ‘I have changed my mind now, it’s not happening because they didn’t do it on the day I wanted to do it on’…
“Now there’s a backlash coming against him because people are starting to see he’s like the boy that cried wolf.”
Nelson clarified that he does not believe Fury calling off the fight was in any way out of fear, saying: “I’m not saying Tyson will probably lose to Joshua, or vice-versa. I’m not saying one beats the other.”
Adam Catterall, who hosts talkSPORT's Fight Night, and leading boxing writer Gareth A Davies were both scathing of Fury on the Breakfast Show.
Catterall said: "Tyson Fury called out Anthony Joshua and made all these stipulations - the 60:40 split, the date, the venue. The men in suits are now behind closed doors trying to iron it out because of all Joshua's commercial obligations and deals with a different broadcaster. You can't just sign a contract without all this being ironed out - you could end up being sued if something isn't right!
"So put your phone down Tyson, nothing's going to change. You know when you're fighting, get in the gym and get cracking. Where's he walking away to? There's no bigger money in the division in 2022 while Usyk is on the backburner than Anthony Joshua.
"You’re walking away to Mahmoud Charr? How many fans are going to buy a PPV view for that, how many people are going to buy a ticket for that?
“Come on, man! Let’s get real, that’s not a fight for the best heavyweight on the planet, Mahmoud Charr, with all due respect to him, isn’t in the top 50 best heavyweights on the planet.
“Why does he want to go and fight him? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. The sense fight is Anthony Joshua, you called him out.
“Put your phone down, go to the gym and get ready, the people in suits will get the fight sorted for you and then we’ll see you December 3, that’s what should be happening.”
He added: "All of Tyson Fury’s team including Frank Warren, including George Warren, including the people who are actually around the table thrashing this deal out, they’re on the same page as Matchroom. That never happens, Matchroom and Eddie Hearn’s team are never on the same page as Queensbury’s team.
“They’re all on the same page, they’re all saying the same things and they’re all going in the right direction, the only person going against the grain here is Tyson Fury.
“So, all fans are going to conclude, if Tyson Fury does walk away from this situation and he sticks to his guns and says, ‘right that’s it Anthony Joshua, you’re out in the cold, I’m not doing it, you didn’t stick to my deadline’.
“If he walks away from this situation right now with how far they’ve pushed this deal down the line and how close they are to getting it over the line, the only conclusion that fans can make is that he never really wanted it in the first place.”
Davies said: "I’m deflated by it!. I remember last year the camps were going back and forth when it was meant to be set for Saudi Arabia in August 2021. I couldn't believe the amount of work being put into it and then it collapsed because of the arbitration case with Deontay Wilder.
"It’s difficult to understand why Fury is so impatient and setting a deadline. Just keep it to yourself. Nobody wants to see Tyson Fury fight Manuel Charr! There’s nothing in it.”
Meanwhile Fury's promotor Frank Warren told TalkSport: "That’s Tyson’s last word and that’s where we’re at. I’ve not even spoken to him today, he’s very, very disappointed, so we’ll see. For me, he’s set a deadline that was ten days after he sent the contract and a few people have said that it doesn’t make sense, but it’s ten days.
“You get a transfer deadline in football and sometimes there’s a scramble last-minute to get players and get it over the line, that’s what should have been happening. We’ll see where it goes, but at the moment I feel that we are where we are with it.”