Tyson Fury has dropped his first update since Anthony Joshua was sent a contract for their world heavyweight title bout, telling fans he had no interest in anything other than mourning the Queen's passing.
A bank holiday has been declared today for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, with Fury one of the more high profile figures to pay his respects at Buckingham Palace last week. The Queen passed away at the age of 96 at Balmoral Castle earlier this month, ending the longest reign of any monarch in British history.
She passed away in the midst of a concentrated effort from Fury to pressure Joshua into publicly agreeing to fight him on December 3 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. He had vowed to post a video every hour until Joshua made a social media post agreeing to the fight, but stopped suddenly upon learning of the Queen's death.
Since then, he has been spotted participating in Joseph Parker's training camp and leaving flowers at Buckingham Palace, and has stayed completely silent across social media. But today he took to Instagram to share a new update, days after a contract was sent for Joshua to sign.
"Hey guys, Queen's funeral today," Fury said in a brief update on his Instagram story. "I've been off social media for the past ten days mourning, in respect for our Queen who has died. Not posted nothing, not been interested in anything else, to be fair. I hope all the funeral goes well, condolences to the full family and may she rest in Heaven in eternity. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen."
Last Friday, Joshua received a contract for the fight, with terms including the date and a 60/40 purse split in favour of Fury. Another key term to the deal is that should Joshua win, there will be an immediate rematch in which the split is 50/50 if Fury exercises a clause.
His team have publicly indicated that they agree to the terms laid out by Fury's promoter Frank Warren, though it remains to be seen exactly when they will sign up for the fight. In the meantime, the world heavyweight champion has stayed quiet about where the deal stands on his end.
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Fury had claimed after his last mandatory title defence against Dillian Whyte in April that he was retiring from the sport as an undefeated heavyweight champion. But he now appears to be fully out of that, with a likely fight date at the end of the year whether it's Joshua of somebody else.
He has already offered £2million to Derek Chisora for a trilogy that was turned down, and also teased a potential meeting with Mahmoud Charr. However, talks have intensified with Joshua's team for a possible meeting this year, which would end a lengthy rivalry between the pair should a deal get over the line and delight British fight fans.
Joshua was recently defeated twice consecutively by Oleksandr Usyk for the unified WBA Super, WBO and IBF world heavyweight titles. He was planning a slow return to action with two tune-up fights before pursuing the world champions again, before being offered a shock deal to face Fury for the WBC belt, which is the one major title he has never held.
