Tyson Fury says he “needs to fight” fellow British heavyweight Anthony Joshua before he retires.
Negotiations over a potential bout between WBC champion Fury and former unified champion Joshua’s teams broke down in September.
Instead, Fury, 34, will defend his title against Derek Chisora in London on 3 December.
“I don’t think I can retire today because I need that Joshua fight,” Fury said on the High Performance Podcast.
“We have been trying to make that fight for years. It’s the fight that people want to see. It’s the fight that I want to see as a boxing fan.”
Discussions over a potential bout between Fury and Joshua were held following the 33-year-old’s defeat in a second fight against Oleksandr Usyk in August.
Shortly after the bout, Fury challenged Joshua to a fight via a video on social media, to which Joshua accepted, saying he would be “ready in December”.
Negotiations ended with both parties blaming each other for the fight not coming to fruition.
Fury’s meeting with Britain’s Chisora, 38 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will be the third meeting between the pair, with Fury winning in 2011 and 2014.
Fury won the WBC title, alongside the The Ring belt which he later vacated, in his second of three fights against Deontay Wilder in 2020.
At the time, Joshua held the remaining titles in the heavyweight division, before his first defeat by Usyk 2021.
In the past year, British heavyweights Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois have also earned statement wins in the division, with Dubois beating Trevor Bryan in June and Joyce defeating Joseph Parker in September.
Despite all the potential bouts for Fury in 2023, he says Joshua remains top of his priorities.
“For the last four or five years, there has been this three-headed monster: me, Wilder, Joshua,” said Fury.
“Joshua and Wilder have been slain, and I’m the last one standing. All of a sudden, you’ve got some new people coming up now – Joe Joyce, Daniel Dubois, Usyk’s gate-crashed the party.
“Now there’s a load of new blood that wasn’t there five years ago and it’s like, ‘can you beat this person?’
“But I think it would be an absolute dying travesty if me and Joshua didn’t fight in this era.”
Source: BBC Sport
