Tyson Fury may have announced his retirement, but there is still plenty of hope he will fight Anthony Joshua.

‘The Gypsy King’ revealed he was walking away from the sport in a brief social media post at the start of January. It came just weeks after his second consecutive loss to Oleksandr Usyk.

The first of those in May was for all four belts and undisputed honours. Fury lost narrowly on points. The second was for three of the four belts and saw the Ukrainian take the win again, handing Fury his second professional loss.

For many years, the former world champion was long linked with a fight with fellow Brit Joshua and it seemed the time was now right given that Joshua also lost his last fight against Dubois in September, leaving both men with seemingly nowhere better to go than this legacy-defining contest.

Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show, promoter Eddie Hearn outlined what must happen if the fight is to go ahead next given that Joshua – who has also lost twice to Usyk – is keen to fight on.

“When you talk about Tyson Fury, he would need to come out of retirement in the next couple of weeks to fight ‘AJ’ next because ‘AJ ‘is looking to fight himself, twice this year, the first one in the summer, June, whenever that is going to be, then again at the end of the year. If Fury doesn’t come out of retirement soon that fight is not going to happen next.” (Agency Report)