TEMPTING FATE
THE punishment Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have received for not being able to deliver the most blindingly obvious and important fight in the sport are a couple of potential banana skins thrown down within a fortnight of each other.
Next month Fury reconnects with Deontay Wilder, still arguably the heavyweight division’s hardest puncher, while on Saturday (September 25) Joshua risks it all against Oleksandr Usyk, the former world cruiserweight champion who once won an Olympic gold medal at the same 2012 Games as Joshua. Both opponents have clear and unique dangers but of the two it is probably Usyk, a man blessed with the ring IQ Wilder lacks, who is the one more equipped to ensure Joshua-Fury is a forgotten thing of the past. He is, after all, unbeaten, and brilliant, and a man few heavyweights would volunteer to fight if other options were available.
Joshua, for his sins, has no choice in the matter this weekend. Just as Fury has been ordered to fight Wilder, thus delaying everyone’s fun, Joshua too is being forced to fight Usyk, his mandatory challenger for one
