Is Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury dead after Joshua’s latest loss?

Is Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury a dead fight after “AJ” was knocked out by Daniel Dubois in the 5th round of their championship fight this weekend? Not according to Fury’s manager Spencer Brown, who said there’s still big desire from Saudi boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh to make the fight happen.

“Maybe we see Tyson against Anthony Joshua,” Brown told FightHubTV’s Marcos Villegas. “They’ve always said they’re going to fight each other and His Excellency also said that win, lose, or draw he wants them to fight each other.”

The heavyweight division is certainly getting more cluttered as Fury and Joshua struggle with opponents like Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois. A fight between the two would still be huge, but not as huge as if they’d faced each other years ago when they were both undefeated. And now Joshua’s loss is pulling Fury towards a Dubois fight instead.

“When I fight Usyk in December, I’ll take all the belts that I never should have lost,” he told FightHubTV. “And then I’ll fight Dubois and take that [belt] off him as well. That’s my plan.”

It could be that those wanting to see Fury vs. Joshua now have to hope that Fury loses to Usyk in December. For his part, “The Gypsy King” didn’t kick “AJ” while he was down.

“It’s heavyweight boxing, boys,” he said of Joshua’s loss. “It happens. S— happens. You get knocked spark out. It could have been me, it could have been you, it could have been anybody. In the heavyweight division, it’s what happens. One punch away from being smashed, knocked out. What went wrong is what always goes wrong in heavyweight boxing: a good right hand to the chin, and that was it.”

Following the defeat, there was a lot of talk that Joshua should retire. But the 34-year-old pushed back on that during the post-fight press conference.

“You’re probably asking, do I still want to continue fighting?” he said. “Of course I want to continue fighting. We took a shot at success and we came up short. What does that mean now, are we going to run away? We’re going to live to fight another day. That’s what I am: a warrior.”

“We rolled the dice for the third time. That’s thirteen world title fights, and not every one has been successful, but every one has been fine and entertaining. We’re trying to create history for British boxing, and I think we’re doing that.”