Former world champion and Sky Sports analyst Carl Froch admits that Tyson Fury's claim he would deal with Anthony Joshua "like a cat playing with wool" is "difficult to argue with."
Fury (25-0, 18 KOs), 28, has not fought since dominating Wladimir Klitschko over twelve rounds to capture the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight world titles in November 2015. He was forced to vacate his championships last fall after dealing with mental health issues and substance abuse.
Joshua (19-0, 19KOs), 27, just had a Fight of The Year battle with Klitschko last month, before a crowd of 90,000 at Wembley in London. Joshua got off the floor in the sixth round and went through some tough moments to stop Klitschko in the eleventh to unify the IBF, IBO, WBA belts.
Speaking on the Friday Sports Panel on BBC Radio 5 live, Froch said:
"[Fury] had his hands behind his back at times. He was tapping his foot and was goading and was nonchalant in his mannerisms from the first bell right through to the last - and this is a guy that Anthony Joshua struggled with."
Fury claims that he can return right now to face Joshua in his next fight, which Froch strongly disagrees with. Fury's out of shape and likely has a lot of ring rust to deal with. Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn believes the fight could happen next April at the earliest.
"He's been out of the ring two years, he's had issues that I don't want to bring up, so is he going to be the same guy who beat Klitschko? Of course he isn't. He's probably going to need a couple of fights but he's certainly a really exciting and interesting addition to the heavyweight division," Froch said.
At the moment Fury is dealing with an ongoing hearing with UK Anti-Doping, with respect to failed test in early 2015. Should Fury get suspended it would affect the Joshua fight happening for some time.