Tyson Fury has demanded that American up-and-comer Jared Anderson be put on the undercard of his fight with Dillian Whyte.
The world heavyweight champion finally sealed a record-breaking deal for a bout with Whyte, to take place in the UK, after a monstrous purse bid was won by his promoters Bob Arum and Frank Warren yesterday.
And he is eager to get youngster Anderson into his camp as a training partner, where he is already joined by former world champion Joseph Parker.
Fury and Anderson have sparred on a number of occasions before, and it is believed that the 22-year-old knockout artist is going to be a world heavyweight champion in the future.
And the Brit's promoter Bob Arum, who also takes care of Anderson, has said that Fury wants him on the card to allow for the pair to work together again.
Anderson appeared on the undercard of Fury's trilogy with Deontay Wilder, stopping the unbeaten Vladimir Tereshkin at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas last October.
"He's really over the moon," Arum told FightHype of Fury's delight at winning the fight over Matchroom Boxing's Eddie Hearn. "I talked to him right after the purse bid.
"He was really happy, and the first thing he asked me is he wanted Jared Anderson over there to spar with him.
"We had Anderson programmed for a fight in March, and we'll make him one of the principle supports on the Fury-Whyte card in April."
It cost Top Rank Boxing and Queensberry Promotions a whopping £31million to beat Matchroom's £24m offering last night for the WBC title fight.
Purse bids had been delayed on a number of occasions as Whyte was locked in a legal battle with the governing body over the massive 80-20 split differential.
But it now appears that the fight is to go ahead, with April 23 a possible date for Fury's first fight in the UK since his tune-up bouts after coming back in 2018.
He had been out of the ring for almost three years, having ballooned to almost 400lb, after defeating Wladimir Klitschko for the unified world titles in 2015 when he decided to return in the summer of 2018.
Will Dillian Whyte upset Tyson Fury, or will the Gypsy King continue his reign at heavyweight? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
Fury fought Sefer Seferi at the Manchester Arena before taking on Francesco Pianeta at Windsor Park in Belfast, and then immediately burst into a title fight with Deontay Wilder.
Despite dominating almost the entire contest, Fury was dropped twice by Wilder in their bout and the judges scored a draw, so in February 2020 the pair rematched.
This time, Fury made no mistake, changing trainers to the Kronk Gym's SugarHill Steward in an effort to land a surprise stoppage.
And he did just that, completely overpowering Wilder and putting him down three times before the bout was finished in the seventh.
The pair were contractually obligated to a trilogy, and after the coronavirus delayed it by almost two years, Fury stopped Wilder in the eleventh round last October.
Elsewhere in the heavyweight division, Anthony Joshua will now make one more effort at reclaiming the WBA, WBO and IBF world titles against Oleksandr Usyk in a rematch of their September 2021 bout.
