Usyk now has a deadline from the man he has already beaten twice.
“Do you want to fight me this year, 2026, or are you calling it quits? Let me know, because I’m now looking for a new opponent,” Fury said in a video message posted this weekend.
The demand comes after weeks of collapsing negotiations for a November showdown with Joshua, which Fury declared dead over the weekend. In an Instagram story on Sunday, he dismissed the Briton in blunt terms: “So it looks like AJ has (expletive) his pants yet again. After 11 years, he’s finally (expletive) his pants yet again.”
Venue impasse killed the Joshua fight
The Fury-Joshua bout had been targeted for November at Madison Square Garden in New York, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh. Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn insisted the contract called for a UK venue, ideally Wembley Stadium. Neither side would move.
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Fury has spent the past fortnight publicly blaming Hearn. On 21 August he told reporters the fight would not happen “all because Eddie Hearn and that want more money”, and last week doubled down: “I can’t make a coward fight, can I? If A.J. was any sort of man, he’d overrule the sausage and he’d stand up and fight but obviously he’s not.”
Joshua has not commented publicly on the collapse. His camp’s position, relayed by Hearn in a series of media appearances, was that a US date would also expose Joshua to heavier tax on the purse.
Fury takes aim at Joshua’s temperament
The label that stuck in the new video was “weak-minded”. Fury told TNT Sports that Joshua “is weak-minded… and that he would never fight The Gypsy King”, casting the failed negotiation as a character verdict rather than a business dispute.
He then pivoted. “This will only lead me to a fight with Oleksandr Usyk,” Fury said, before offering the Ukrainian a rare concession on the two decisions that ended his own unbeaten record.
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“You got the decisions last time, fair play to you. Good luck to you, let’s do it again.”
To underline that venue would not be the wall it had become with Joshua, Fury reeled off a list: “I’ll fight anywhere. I’ll fight in Brazil, I’ll fight in Morecambe, I’ll fight in Derby, I’ll fight in Costa del Sol. I’ll fight on Mars!”
The ball is in Usyk’s court
There is no third fight yet. It is a public demand, not a signed bout, and Usyk holds every card.
Usyk beat Fury on points in Riyadh in May 2024 to become undisputed heavyweight champion, then repeated the result in the December rematch. His most recent outing was a fifth-round stoppage of Daniel Dubois in their July 2025 rematch.
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Fury himself was more sceptical of a third meeting only five months ago. In April he told The Ring the maths were stacked against him: “if I don’t knock him out, I’m not getting a decision. No matter what I do, if I win 11 out of 12 rounds, I’ve lost.”
Usyk has not publicly responded to the challenge.
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