Anthony Joshua has opened up on the only time he shared the ring with Tyson Fury.

Back in 2010, when Fury was a surging professional prospect and Joshua was a young hungry amateur, the pair duked it out at Finchley Boxing Club.

Joshua sparred Fury two years before winning Olympic gold in LondonCredit: GETTY

The spar came about after Fury wrote a guest column in Boxing News magazine calling for sparring partners to step up and face him.

Fury offered anyone who could knock him out an expensive Rolex watch as a reward and although Joshua wasn’t able to achieve the feat, Fury humbly admitted that AJ ‘battered’ him for three rounds.

Giving his side of the story during a recent appearance on James Cordon’s This Life of Mine podcast, Joshua said: “This guy called Tyson Fury, I had no idea who he was, comes out into the gym and the word on the street was that Tyson said he is the best heavyweight and that if anyone knocks him out, they get his Rolex watch.

“I’m looking at the cash, I said, ‘Rolex yeah? Let’s go!’

“The bell goes, we go at it. I think that we sparred about three or four rounds.

“Even Tyson actually, he did an interview promoting the fight saying ‘There is this kid called Anthony Joshua, I sparred him down at Finchley Boxing Club and I will tell you what, he is s*** hot.

“I believe that he is going to go on and do great things, he hit me with a shot and nearly took my head off.’

“After that, the praise stopped because I was on his coattails, so I started chasing him up the division.

“That fight is one that has never been so close.”

Joshua and Fury are on the cusp of finally getting it in in the squared circle next year after seeing several attempts to make the fight fall by the wayside.

Fury was a young undefeated professional at the timeCredit: GETTY

Fury rematches Oleksandr Usyk on December 21 for the WBC, WBA, and WBO titles, while Joshua takes on Daniel Dubois for the IBF strap on September 21.

Providing both men win their next fights, then Saudi boxing chief HE Turki Alalshikh insists they will fight each other next.

But even if either of them falls to defeat, the long-awaited all-British showdown could still be on the cards.

“Joshua if he wins, he will wait for the result of Tyson and Usyk, this is the big fight and everyone will wait for it,” HE Alalshikh told Charlie Parsons via an X Space.

“If Tyson wins then that means we must see Joshua vs Tyson. One of the biggest fights in boxing, all the people want to see it…

“Even if they lost before it doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t want to see it.

“First of all if Usyk wins then he deserves to choose a big fight and this will be his right, right?

“If he chooses Joshua and Joshua accepts then we want to do this fight but still at the same time we want to see Tyson vs Joshua.

“Let’s see what Tyson will do on this night and whether he will give us on December 21 a great fight then for sure we want to see him against Joshua.

“This would be huge for the fans and for boxing.”