Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury sparring: Infamous 2010 session told round-by-round by AJ’s coach who was ringside
ANTHONY JOSHUA and Tyson Fury’s brief sparring session in 2010 has become the stuff of legend in British boxing.
Neither heavyweight superstar could have expected their three-round encounter would be so significant almost ten years later.
The Gypsy King was only two years into his professional career when he visited Finchley Amateur Boxing club while Joshua was still a raw novice.
Now, a decade on and the pair are on the verge of the biggest fight in British history, for the undisputed title in Saudi Arabia on August.
But it will not be the first time they shared the ring.
After Fury issued an open challenge, offering his Rolex for any sparring partner who could floor him, AJ answered the beck and call.
Ever since, stories have been shared on what really happened in the ring, but very few know what actually went down.
One who does is Joshua’s amateur coach Sean Murphy, who had the best seat in the house as he officiated the spar.
And in an interview with iFL TV in December 2020, he gave a round-by-round insight on what is now an infamous spar.
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ROUND 1
SM: “(Fury) gets in the ring, first round I think he thought, ‘This is just going to be a walk in the park’.
“But he came out and he sort of laid back relaxed, Josh walked over and just went uppercut, left hook and he (Fury) was like wobbling.
“It was like a little kick up the a***, like this is serious, this is serious.
“So anyway, he’s got his hand on the rope now and I’ve gone to him, ‘Nah, nah, nah, you can’t do that’.
“And he’s gone, ‘Oh sorry sir. Sorry sir’.”
ROUND 2
SM: “So, had the first round, Josh done what he wanted really because he sort of dazed him in the first round.
“Then the second round, he (Fury) comes out and he starts talking to Josh, so he’s getting in Josh’s head a little bit.
“Now where Josh was hitting him with the straight shots, Josh is missing him now because he’s swinging and he’s trying to knock Tyson out now.”
ROUND 3
“So he’s (Joshua) come back to the corner and I’ve given him a proper bollocking.
“I said, ‘What the f*** are you doing?’ Sorry about the language, I said, ‘What the f*** are you doing? That’s what he wants’.
“I said, ‘Go out there and do what we were doing in the first round’.”
“He went out there, boxed his head off in the third round and then Tyson’s gone, ‘Sean, let me have one more round, one more round, let me have one more round’.
“And he had a mark under his eye as well, and I said to Josh, ‘Jump out Josh’.”
THE AFTERMATH
SM: “After the spar I said to Josh, ‘Ask him if the Rolex was up for grabs’.
“Because I’ve seen him in an interview and he said, ‘If anyone can knock me down, I’ll give them my Rolex’.
“So he’s sitting on the floor and fair play to him, he (Joshua) went to him, ‘Was the Rolex up for grabs?’ And he (Fury) started laughing.
“And he (Joshua) went, ‘I nearly had it. I nearly had it’. And we probably nearly did if he followed it up when he grabbed the ropes he probably would have dropped him.
“It’s neither here nor there, but fair play to to him, Tyson laughed and he said, ‘Yep, you nearly did kid. You nearly did kid’.
“When they came we had no animosity, he was a really nice lad. I think he’s a nice person, he’s a boxing man.
“And when they get it on, that’s what it going to be. It should be about the boxing, but you know it’s going to be the buildup and all that.
“But it’s going to make for a brilliant fight.”