Tyson Fury has urged his promoter, Frank Warren, to find him a series of big opponents to help prepare for a heavyweight showdown with Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder in 2019 – thus dampening the possibility of an intriguing clash with Tony Bellew.
Bellew, who defeated David Haye for a second time last month, tweeted on Sunday that he would knock out Fury before telling him: “Let’s do this.”
Fury, however, has other targets in mind after stopping Sefer Seferi in four rounds on a rowdy Saturday night in Manchester.
“I want someone big, not small ones,” Fury said when asked about the prospect of facing Bellew. “Look at Wilder and Joshua, they’re big guys. I’ve got to prepare for people like that.”
Warren seemed more amenable, though, and suggested that a fight could be made if Bellew was willing to accept terms. “It’s up to Tony Bellew,” he said. “We could do it before the end of the year.”
Next for Fury will be a fight against a yet-to-be-decided opponent on the undercard of the Carl Frampton bill in August, although whoever it is will not represent a significant step up in quality over Seferi. For now, at least, Warren’s main priority is to keep Fury active in order to shake off any lingering ring rust and to get his weight down from 19st 10lb to closer to 18st.
“I want to keep him busy,” Warren said. “I’d like to get him out in August, once or twice more before Christmas and one of those I want to be a fight that people will appreciate that is a possible main event.”
Warren was noticeably cooler about the prospect of an imminent fight with the WBA champion Manuel Charr, saying that while the Lebanese heavyweight was in the arena he had a mandatory defence of his title coming up. “After a couple of fights I’m quite sure Tyson will become mandatory challenger for all these guys and then they won’t be able to get out of the way. When you’re negotiating you want to get them in the No 1 spot. That gets them sitting down or vacating the titles.”
Against Seferi there was often more action outside the ring than in it – with Fury appearing more concerned about a mass brawl that broke out in the crowd during the second round than anything Seferi was throwing at him. Once the speed and sting in his punches started to bite, his opponent understandably decided to stay on his stool at the end of the fourth.
“It was a bit of a loosener back,” Fury said. “The opponent was quite short, and he was quick. But he didn’t come to fight, he came to come round and run. He took me a few rounds, I was happy. In a couple more fights I will be ready. I’ll have a world title by the end of the year, no problem.”
That may be optimistic. That said, this fight alone was never going to tell us much about how rosy Fury’s future is likely to be. Against Seferi, nine inches shorter and five stone lighter, the dice were loaded in his favour. And the house was always going to win. This was more about scrubbing off the ring rust after a 914‑day absence.
“He has lost 8st in three months, how many people can do that?” Warren said, not unreasonably. “But he still has got a stone and a half to get off. I want to see him get rid of the weight so he’s actually in a situation that he is training for a contest rather than having to work to lose the weight. Once he’s done that he will be working on his moves, and you’ll see he will get more sharp.
“And I don’t care what anyone says, there were a certain amount of nerves there and why wouldn’t there be? He’s been out of the ring over two‑and‑a‑half years.”
Earlier, when Fury entered the ring, he was greeted like a returning hero by a near-capacity 15,000 crowd. In the past he has never been a great ticket seller but there was genuine affection at the Manchester Arena for him – although some of that was tempered by Seferi pulling out when the going got tough. As the boos rang out, one reporter’s laptop was ruined by a can of beer flying over it.
“I think people can associate with him,” Warren said. “It’s a British thing, isn’t it? We have got that mentality with our heroes. We build them up and we knock them down. But people love him – and the fact he went down to rock bottom, that he was in a bad place, that he was depressed, and he went out and came out supportive of people with similar problems.”
