Tyson Fury has confirmed his return to the sport and is set to take a ‘warm-up’ fight following over a year of inactivity rather than jumping straight back in at the deep end.
A two-time heavyweight world champion, Fury famously dethroned Wladimir Klitschko to get his hands on the unified titles back in 2015 but lost the belts without making a defence due to inactivity caused by mental health troubles and addiction.
Fury regained world honours by defeating Deontay Wilder in their 2020 rematch and went on to defend the WBC heavyweight crown on three occasions, before suffering a first career defeat to Oleksandr Usyk when bidding for the undisputed title.
‘The Gypsy King’ then decided to walk away from boxing after another defeat to Usyk in their rematch, but fans doubted the sincerity of the claim, with this being the fifth occasion on which Fury had announced his retirement.
Sure enough, the 37-year-old has now revealed that he will return to action in 2026, but his manager, Spencer Brown, ruled out newly crowned WBO heavyweight champion Fabio Wardley as a potential first opponent in an interview with BoxNation, agreeing when the interviewer said the big puncher from Ipswich was ‘too dangerous’ at this stage.
“Don’t be so silly. Why would he fight him [Wardley] straight away? He needs a warm-up fight. Why would he do that when he’s been out and Wardley has been very active and doing his job? If he told me that he was fighting Wardley tomorrow, I would just say ‘wait’.
“Yes, I’ll agree with you on that one, [that Wardley is too dangerous right now].”
Instead, Arslanbek Makhmudov is being considered as the frontrunner to be in the opposing corner for Fury’s first fight of 2026, three months after the Russian trumped Dave Allen on British soil.
Wardley has welcomed the fight for later in the year, and is expected to make a voluntary first defence of his belt in the meantime.
