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06th Nov 2017

Tyson Fury says he’s “sh****d midgets” after downplaying Anthony Joshua’s latest victory

The man will say anything

Darragh Murphy

Tyson Fury is fond of a bizarre rant or two.

And as he attempts to ramp up interest in his inevitable all-British clash with Anthony Joshua, the controversial heavyweight has come out with one of his weirdest statements to date while playing down the most recent victory of ‘AJ’ in Cardiff.

Joshua stopped late replacement Carlos Takam in the 10th round of their showdown in the Principality Stadium last weekend but many pundits were surprised that he had been dragged into such deep waters by the impressively durable challenger.

Takam had replaced Joshua’s original opponent, Kubrat Pulev, on less than two week’s notice and the fact that the Brit somewhat struggled to put his opponent away prompted plenty of criticism.

One man who was not at all impressed by Joshua’s victory was fellow undefeated fighter, Fury, who is expected to return to the ring in 2018 and clash with the London 2012 gold medallist after a couple of tune-up fights.

Speaking to IFL TV, Fury said: “After looking at the fight on the weekend with AJ and Takam, AJ struggled with, let’s face it, a glorified midget, no disrespect to midgets, because I happen to like midgets and I’ve sh****d a couple.

“But he was a glorified midget in the heavyweight division.

“He was a tough man and he was brave but he ain’t Tyson Fury. He ain’t 6ft 9, 18 stone, can turn on a fifty pence coin.

“He ain’t that man and he [Joshua] struggled with that man [Takam] – so how’s he going to beat this man if he struggles with midgets who just come forward with their hands up?”

Fury hasn’t fought in almost two years, with his most recent fight coming against Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf in 2015.

But Fury’s time at the top was short-lived as he saw rematches with the Ukrainian cancelled due to a series of issues on Fury’s part; including injury, psychological troubles and traces of cocaine showing up in a blood test.

He recently revealed the significant weight he will have to drop if he is to make a spectacular comeback and while it will take several months to get back into fight shape, ‘2 Fast’ remains nothing but supremely confident in his abilities.

“These haven’t beaten champions, they’ve beaten ‘has-beens,’ they’ve beaten shadows of former glories and they’ve beaten bums,” Fury continued.

“No disrespect to [Carlos] Takam or [Dominic] Breazeale or [Eric] Molina or Charles Martin, they’re all doing the best they can with the ability God’s given them but they ain’t Tyson Fury – I am.

“And until I’m beaten, this is my division, and I’ve been out of the ring two years now, so that should give them a good chance of beating me, I should be the underdog in every fight I have.

“But I’m so used to being the underdog every single time, even after I schooled Klitschko for twelve rounds in Dusseldorf, in the rematch they said I had no chance again.

“I’m still unbeaten, I’m still young, I’m still good-looking – I may be a bit chubby but some chicks dig that.”