Tyson Fury Reveals the One Thing He Remembers Sparring a Young Anthony Joshua

Fury opens up on the old sparring session as both prepare for fights this week.

Tyson Fury during a press conference on October 23, 2024. | IMAGO / PA Images

Tyson Fury has decided to lift the curtain on what happened in an old sparring session between him and Anthony Joshua as he prepares to fight heavyweight Mariusz Wach this Friday in Thailand.

Fury and Joshua signed to fight later this year, with Wembley Stadium as one of the likely venues in a fight that will pit two of the greatest British heavyweights of this generation against each other.

Fury will first have to make it past Wach, which should be no issue for him as he just cruised past Arslanbek Makhmudov on points in April. Wach, at this point, probably couldn't lace Makhmudov's gloves.

Joshua is set for a test of his own as he takes on little-known Albanian heavyweight Kristian Prenga in Jeddah - his first fight since knocking out Jake Paul and, more importantly, surviving a fatal car crash in Nigeria that took the lives of two of his close friends.

Anthony Joshua | IMAGO / PA Images

Fury remembers sparring Joshua

Not to tempt the universe, but it is more than likely that both men pass these tests with flying colors and begin to build to one of the biggest fights in British boxing history. But to do that properly, we must wind the clock back 16 years to 2010 when a young Joshua, still an amateur, stepped into the ring to spar with a recently turned professional Fury.

"He [Joshua] was an amateur boxer, I was pro – maybe 10-0 or something. Fury told Pro Box TV. "So yeah, there wasn’t much to think... There was a lot of people in the gym, so there was a lot of witnesses there.

"So yeah, he was just an amateur boxer really. I remember him putting his legs up like this, in the ropes, after about three rounds – turning away in the corner. I remember that quite vividly.

“But yeah, listen, he was just an amateur boxer at that time. He wasn’t like an Olympian or anything, so it wasn’t really: ‘Ooh, the sparring, what do I remember from it?’ I’ve sparred maybe 400 or 500 heavyweights. Don’t remember very much from many of them, really.

“A vivid memory I do have of it, though, is - I remember in about round three, he started putting his legs up – or round four, he started putting his knees up in the corner. I was like: ‘What the f--- is this?’ And then they pulled him out and put somebody else in. That was that.”

Masterful mind games from Fury?

Joshua would, two years later, go on to become an Olympic gold medallist and both he and Fury would become two-time heavyweight world champions. They are very different men and very different fighters now at 36 and 37, respectively.

Fury has not wanted to talk about Joshua much lately, dismissing him as not worth his time. Why then has Fury decided to unveil this piece of information at this time, just three days before Joshua gets back into the ring for the first time in eight months?

Joshua usually keeps a cool exterior and shrugs off most inane insults, but the Fury fight will be, without doubt, one of the biggest fights of his career to date. It stands to reason, then, that Fury is going to try and gain every advantage possible over his future opponent. A story like that will end up getting back to Joshua, and he will be asked about it in the press before and after his fight.

Tyson Fury | Richard Pelham/Getty Images.

As we know, Fury can sometimes play fast and loose with the truth, as when previously talking about this very sparring session, he gave a very different story.

“He came at me for three rounds," Fury said. "And he gave me a beating; I’m not going to deny it.”

Which version of this story is true is yet to be decided, but it will be a test of Joshua's resolve whether or not he chooses to respond, either confirming, denying, correcting, or just ignoring Fury's story. If he goes for any option other than ignoring it, Fury will surely claim victory in the first mental battle in what will be a long war leading up to their fight.