FRANK Warren remains keen on getting Tyson Fury back in the ring this summer, but time and a lack of suitable opponents are not on his side.
Negotiations for an undisputed world heavyweight title fight between Fury and Oleksandr Usyk fell through earlier this year with each side blaming the other.
The 34-year-old fought twice in 2022 beating Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora with plenty to spare. Warren is working on who the 35th opponent will be for Fury but options appear thin.
Warren told Boxing News that Andy Ruiz has been ruled out due to financial demands while other potential options are tied up. Zhilei Zhang is contractually obliged to fight Joe Joyce again and Daniel Dubois is hoping to finalise a fight against Oleksandr Usyk.
“I want to get him [Fury] out whatever happens and get back in the swing of things. It’s just a bloody shame we wasted so much time [on the Usyk fight],” said Warren.
“The problem we’ve got is the ones we wanted are all fighting. The Zhang fight, Joe Joyce, I wouldn’t have gone with Joe next, he’ll have to get a win first and obviously Daniel. We’ll have a look around and see what’s available.”
As BN reported earlier this week Joyce has chosen to invoke his rematch clause with Zhang and will look to avenge his disappointing loss from earlier this year.
“He has the contractual right to do that. That’s his call so there’s nothing we can do about that,” said Warren who is confident the fight will be in the UK.
BN asked Warren what he thought about Joyce’s decision to take on Zhang after being stopped in six rounds first time around.
“He suffered a really bad eye injury as we know. He was getting caught, he hadn’t fought a southpaw in a long time, and he came in lighter than he normally does.
“He does get caught in fights, we’ve seen that, that’s nothing unusual but he got caught often and I thought he struggled a bit for a while with the southpaw [style]. He’s 38 years of age. He thinks he can correct what he did, we’re only going to find out when they get in the ring.”
Due to Fury’s popularity and the success of his last two fights at Wembley there were plans to get ‘The Gypsy King’ back in front of 80,000 plus once again this summer but time is running out.
“I don’t know yet because we’re getting very close [to summer], that’s part of the problem, but we’ll get him out.”
