Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua have dominated British heavyweight boxing for the past decade, and their meeting is the fight fans have wanted for most of it. It is now confirmed for 11 December, and anyone checking the Fury v Joshua odds will know that neither man got this far unopposed. A handful of heavyweights have matched them, and some have beaten them. These are the rivals who have tested both men the hardest.
Wladimir Klitschko, the champion they both beat
Klitschko is the one world champion both Britons have beaten. The Ukrainian won Olympic super-heavyweight gold in 1996 and ruled the division for roughly a decade, using his long jab and heavy right hand to grind opponents down.
Fury ended that reign in Dusseldorf in 2015, frustrating Klitschko with his movement and winning a unanimous decision. Joshua met him at Wembley in 2017 in front of about 90,000. Both men were knocked down before Joshua stopped him in the 11th round. Klitschko retired soon afterwards, and those two nights remain the clearest way to compare the two Britons against the same opponent.
Deontay Wilder, Fury’s toughest test
Wilder held the WBC title for five years and made 10 defenses with some of the hardest punching the division has seen. His trilogy with Fury is one of the great heavyweight rivalries.
Their first fight in Los Angeles in 2018 ended in a draw, with Fury getting up from a heavy 12th-round knockdown. Fury stopped him in the seventh round of their rematch in Las Vegas in 2020, then knocked him out in the 11th in 2021 after both men had been down. Joshua and Wilder were linked for years but never met, so Fury holds that comparison alone.
Oleksandr Usyk, the one neither could solve
Usyk won heavyweight gold at the London 2012 Olympics, the same Games where Joshua won super-heavyweight gold, and became undisputed champion at cruiserweight before moving up.
He outpointed Joshua at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2021 and again in Saudi Arabia in 2022. In May 2024 he beat Fury on a split decision in Riyadh, after having him in deep trouble in the ninth round, to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis. He won the rematch that December. Two wins over each man make Usyk the measure both have fallen short of.
Daniel Dubois, the home rival
Dubois gave Joshua one of the heaviest defeats of his career. The London heavyweight dropped him several times at Wembley in 2024 before knocking him out in the fifth round, in front of more than 90,000.
Dubois has lost twice to Usyk, but he came back to win the WBO title by stopping Fabio Wardley in May 2026. His win over Joshua showed that the threat to Britain’s two biggest names could come from inside the country as well as abroad.
Moses Itauma, the next generation
Itauma is the young heavyweight both men are most often compared with. Born in Slovakia and raised in Chatham in Kent, the southpaw stopped Dillian Whyte in 119 seconds in August 2025, when he was 20.
That result stood out because Joshua and Fury had both beaten Whyte, but neither had done it so quickly. Itauma beat Jermaine Franklin in March 2026 before suffering his first defeat, a ninth-round stoppage by Filip Hrgović for the vacant IBF title in August. At 21, he is still a name either man could meet
What the rivals tell us about Fury v Joshua
Taken together, these fights show a pattern. Fury has done his best work against big punchers he can outthink, as Klitschko and Wilder found. Joshua has been most dangerous against opponents who stand in front of him, and most troubled by fighters who move or hit back hard, as Usyk and Dubois did.
That contrast is a big part of why the fight has been so anticipated. For fans following the boxing betting markets, the records against these shared and separate rivals are one of the best guides to how the styles might meet.
Betting is for over-18s only.