Anthony Joshua v Tyson Fury: Head To Head Stats & Betting Offers

When it comes to the world of heavyweight boxing, few fights have been as eagerly anticipated in the modern era as the potential one between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. The pair have been dancing around each other for some time, with various excuses for the fight being postponed coming to the fore.

Both men signed a contract for two fights in 2021, with the first fight initially set to take place in Saudi Arabia in August of that year.  That was scrapped when Fury was forced into a third rematch with Wilder and AJ had to take on Oleksandr Usyk.  AJ since lost his belts to Usyk and since losing the rematch by split decision in 2022 it looked like if Fury fought anyone it would be Usyk first, who even has called Fury out.

Remarkably, however, Tyson recognising the public demand for this fight ended up calling out AJ in September for a December fight.  The 60-40 split fight in favour of Fury includes a rematch clause with a 50-50 split if Joshua wins.  The venue of the fight has not yet been decided with Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and Saudi Arabia being early front runners.  Many will hope the fight does take place on British soil and that common sense will prevail over money there.

When AJ beat Kubrat Pulev at Wembley at the end of 2020, he became the IBF, WBA and WBO champion. The Gypsy King, meanwhile, defeated Deontay Wilder for the WBC title.  Life has sent both men in opposite directions since 2020 and now AJ has lost three out of his last five fights while Tyson has won all of his last five.  The fight isn’t the unification fight we all wanted but there is still the WBC belt on the line, thankfully it didn’t end up being so late in their careers that it was a dead rubber.

Fury is obviously a stronger favourite now than he was two years ago but in reality it may still be a hard one to call.  Luckily on this page we give you all the head to head stats you need to help you pick which fighter will win, when and how.

AJ v Fury Fight Details

Head-To-Head Fight Records

The first place to start is by looking at the fight records of the two boxers, going into detail to get a sense of which of them is most likely to come out on top.

Each of them has been able to claim a high-profile scalp during their career to date, making it difficult for many to figure out who is the most likely to win. Tyson Fury has been involved in five more fights than his opponent, but also turned professional five years earlier than Antony Joshua. The table above looks at how the two fighters match up against one another in a number of key metrics.

In some aspects there is little to separate the pair, but in others there’s no question that there are some differences. Fury is both taller than Joshua and has a longer reach, but AJ has a much better knockout record in terms of percentages. The Gypsy King isn’t as good a finisher as Joshua, but then he’s won more fights than his opponent and never lost, whereas AJ has that embarrassing loss to Andy Ruiz Junior and the two losses to Oleksandr Usyk on his record.

Given how close the two fighters are to each other in many ways, it’s worth having a look at who they’ve both faced to get a sense of their abilities. Starting with the earliest, here’s the list of the last ten fighters that AJ has gone up against and their record heading into the bout:

Note, that we excluded AJ’s fight against former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou from this list.  While the fight was fought under boxing rules it was only 10 rounds and fought for money reasons only.

In total, fighters going up against Anthony Joshua had endured 12 losses before their fight, with only one of them having bouts that ended in draws. Here’s how Tyson Fury’s record compares against his last ten fighters, starting with the earliest:

Note, that we excluded Fury’s fight against former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou from this list.  While the fight was fought under boxing rules it was only 10 rounds, no belt was on the line and frankly it was a farce fight for money reasons only.

Between them, the fighters the Gypsy King has taken on have lost 23 times heading into their fight with Fury, with just two of them having drawn bouts and one of them was Wilder having had his first match with Fury called as a draw.  That stat is a little skewed given Chisora had lost 12 fights before taking on Fury for the third time.  Two of those loses were also against him.

It’s perhaps fair to say that the record of Anthony Joshua slightly outweighs that of Fury in terms of the calibre of opposition that both men have faced. Seven of the past ten fights of Anthony Joshua have all been fairly tough, including the fact that Joseph Parker was the undefeated WBO heavyweight champion when the pair went up against each other. Even Joshua’s win over Klitschko was more impressive than Fury’s, knocking him out rather than winning on points.

Still, no one can ignore the fact that Fury has not faced a professional loss to date whereas AJ has lost his belts twice, first to Ruiz and now to Usyk, where he also failed to win them back.  On that basis most will still fancy Fury to win the fight.

Favourite Round For A Knockout

The next thing to look at with the two fighters is when they enjoy a knockout. Many expect Anthony Joshua to win it early if he’s going to knock Fury out, given that 16 of his knock-out wins to date have come in the first three rounds. 70% of AJ’s knockout wins have come in the first quarter of his bouts, with nine of those wins coming in round two, which is unquestionably his favourite round to win a match in.

For Fury, the knock-out percentage is lower in general, but it’s the fifth round that Joshua will have to watch out for. Four of the Gypsy King’s knock-out victories have been achieved in round five, so if it makes it that far then it will be interesting to see what AJ does to avoid following a similar fate.

The table above looks takes a more in-depth look at the rounds in which the two boxers have achieved a knock-out.

There are never any guarantees in boxing and both fighters have enjoyed knock-outs after the seventh, but if it makes it to eight then there’s a very real chance that it could end up going all the way. Given how closely aligned these two fighters are, don’t be surprised if that is indeed what ends up happening and it’s left up to the judges to separate them from each other when the final bell tolls.

Punch Success Rate

If you want to knock out a fellow boxer, the best way of doing so is by punching them hard. If you hope to get the KO on your record then you need to ensure that you land those punches as often as possible, so which of the two fighters has the best record in doing so and which is their favourite round for landing their throws?

Above we look at how the two fighters have got on in their last five bouts.

Whichever way you look at the evidence, the suggestion is that Anthony Joshua likes to end fights early but Tyson Fury has a propensity to draw them out. He’ll be looking to withstand AJ’s early onslaught and hope that his opponent tires as the fight goes on, meaning that he can hit him with a devastating flurry towards the end of the fight. A bet on AJ in the 6th or Fury in 10th might be worth a consideration.

Thinking About Points

If the fight ends up going all the way to the end, it will be up to the judges to decide which of the fighters has won on points. That is something that Anthony Joshua has experienced five times in his 28 fights to date, so it’s fair to say that we only have a limited amount of information to work with on that front. Fury, meanwhile, has seen his fight decided on points four times too. The table above looks at how the fights have been decided for each boxer.

It’s interesting to note that most of Fury’s points-based results were in the early part of his career, when he was asked to fight fewer rounds than he’ll face against Joshua when the fight eventually goes ahead. It’s also intriguing that both of Joshua’s wins came with exactly the same points being scored by the three judges involved, which is worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking about a bet on the points.

Where The Fights Have Taken Place

It’s not a common thing for people to think about, but the venue of a boxing match can have an influence on its outcome. Tyson Fury resisted the pull of America for many years, steering clear of fighting there until he took on Steve Cunningham at Madison Square Garden in 2012. Joshua, meanwhile, has only fought in the United States once in his career, which was when he lost to Andy Ruiz Junior. The table above looks at the records of each fighter in various countries.

Fury has fought and won in more places, with his only drawn match to date coming in the United States of America. Joshua lost his only US-based fight, he won the rematch against Ruiz in Saudi Arabia but then lost in the same country to Usyk.

Thinking About Your Bets

When it comes down to it, there is very little of note to separate to two boxers. There’s a reason why the match-up is one of the most hotly anticipated in British boxing history, with few people prepared to actually put their neck on the line and declare how they think it’s going go. That means that the market is likely to be red hot when it comes to betting, so figuring out what to place your wagers on could be key.

The first thing that you need to figure out is what it is that you personally like to bet on. If you’re the sort of person that usually just goes for the straight 1X2 market then that’s a relatively easy one to choose: who do you think will win? It would be wrong to say definitively that it would be a tie, but the likelihood is that one of these two boxers will win the first bout between the pair of them.

After that, you can think about Round betting. If you have a sense of which boxer is the most likely to win, you can next try to figure out which round they’ll land the knock-out blow in. Though AJ has never knocked anyone out in the sixth and Fury has only achieved one knock-out in the tenth, the fact that those rounds are statistically the ones that they both throw and land the most punches in is certainly worth taking note of.

Tyson Fury tends to win his fights slightly later on than Anthony Joshua, but when AJ fought Andy Ruiz Junior in the rematch he changed his fighting style slightly to allow him to go the distance. Will he do something similar again for his battle with the Gypsy King? If so, is it likely to be a fight that’s decided on points? Were that to be the case, the fact that the three judges in two different fights have scored it 118-110, 118-110, 119-109 in Joshua’s favour is interesting.

The reality is that there are so many unanswered questions about the outcome of this fight and not even a closer look at the statistics paints a clearer picture. When it comes to placing your wager, you’ll probably have a sense of which boxer is more likely to come out on top, so a combination of your intuition and the stats that we’ve provided you with might be the way to go when it comes to placing your wager.

One of the things that you might want to do is to leave placing your bet until as late as possible, scouring the likes of social media to get a better sense of what sort of mood the two fighters are in ahead of the bout. Even as early as March, Joshua was making noises that no fight for months isn’t the best preparation for an event of this magnitude, so trying to figure out if he’s been training well could help to sway your decision.

The other thing that we don’t know right now is where the fight will take place. As Eddie Hearn said, it is a fight that every country in the world would want to host, so pretty much anything is on the cards at the time of writing. Is it possible that where the fight is hosted might give one of these boxers an edge over the other? If crowds are allowed back in to watch it, you shouldn’t under-estimate the impact that they’ll have on the outcome.