AJ or bust! Tyson Fury ready to retire again if Anthony Joshua fight doesn’t come together

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 11: Tyson Fury (L) calls out Anthony Joshua (white shirt) to fight him next after he wins his Heavyweight Contest against Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 11, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Mark Robinson/Getty Images) | Getty Images

Tyson Fury stepped out of retirement on Saturday night to cruise to victory against Arslanbek Makhmudov on Saturday night (highlights here). But if his next fight isn’t against his longtime rival Anthony Joshua, he says he’ll hang his gloves right back up and quit the sport again.

Joshua was ringside at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for Fury’s win, and “The Gypsy King” attempted to coax him into a faceoff or verbal altercation, neither of which worked. While Netflix has been advertising a fall fight like it’s a done deal, “AJ” hasn’t signed anything and wasn’t willing to do any promo for a match he hadn’t agreed to.

That led Fury to suggest Joshua was setting up a duck.

“Openly surprised. He was brought here tonight ringside for a reason, to get in that ring and make a face off and get the fight done,” Fury said at the post-fight press conference. “I’ve signed. I signed months ago. I don’t know if he signed.”

“Ten years in the making and after all this time there’s still uncertainty about if this fight’s going to happen next. He was very evasive and didn’t give no definitive answers. I know one thing. He wasn’t saying yes. In my opinion he didn’t want no smoke. He didn’t want it. He didn’t look like he wanted it. He was just shell-shocked. Didn’t know what to say.”

“If it isn’t Anthony Joshua next, I’m not interested in boxing,” Fury insisted. “I’ll eat a thousand Easter eggs, go up to [490 pounds] and I’m out. Not interested. It’s either him or I’m gone again. I’m not interested in up and comers, not interested in people trying to prove a point over me. I don’t care about rankings, I don’t care about belts. I only care about AJ now. That’s the defining fight for British boxing. It’s either going to happen or it’s not.”

“I don’t want to put any deadlines on it. He either wants to do it or he doesn’t. It’s now or never.”

The ‘now’ of it all seems to be the biggest problem after Anthony Joshua was in a horrific car accident in Africa that saw two of his friends and coaches killed. That happened at the end of December, and Joshua says its still to early for him to commit to a return.

“I was just in a serious incident maybe four months ago,” Joshua said on the Netflix broadcast of Fury vs. Makhmudov. “So I need to really check out what’s going on with my return to the ring. But I’m here. I’m keeping my eye in the game. There’s real stuff happening in my life. I’m not ducking no one. I know what my job is. I know what I’m here to do.

“But there’s just real stuff happening in my life that I also got to attend to.”