Former cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew is backing Anthony Joshua to beat Tyson Fury - if the two heavyweight champions collide in a high stakes unification in 2021.
Fury has to defend his WBC title in a trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder, which may go down in December. And Joshua is making a defense of his WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA world titles against mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev.
Should both champions win, they will be in line to fight each other next year.
As far as the top heavyweights go, Bellew views Joshua as the only boxer capable of defeating Fury - as long as AJ jumps on him in the first six rounds.
However, he feels a rematch between Joshua and Whyte will be far more emotional - and because of that Joshua could get clipped on the chin. Joshua knocked Whyte out in seven rounds in 2015.
"I believe the only heavyweight in the world with the skillset, the speed and the accuracy who can [beat Fury] is AJ. On the other hand, when it comes to matching other fighters up – I may think AJ beats Fury, but I think AJ has real problems going in with Dillian Whyte in a rematch because styles make fights. Dillian will put pressure on AJ and he’ll probably trade. Because it’s so fierce between them with the rivalry and the domestic stuff, he’d probably get caught up in a war and that’d be wrong," Bellew told Talk Sport.
“If AJ went in and boxed against someone like Dillian Whyte, he gives himself a much better opportunity. But when emotions take part, things get out of hand, you get caught up in the moment and you start trading. I think for AJ going in against Fury, he doesn’t get involved with any of that. He just literally jumps on him and throws and lets the punches go.
“AJ’s the fastest combination puncher in the heavyweight division since Mike Tyson. No-one throws punches in combinations with the speed, power and ferocity that AJ does. As I said, he’s got six rounds to do it against Fury. If them six rounds go past then I don’t see anybody beating Tyson Fury after six rounds.”
