Derek Chisora has hit back at Tyson Fury and claiming that Fury has not retired because he already has a deal to face the winner of Saturday’s fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.

Chisora also believes that Joshua will have to “go to the other side” to get his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBF heavyweight titles back.

Fury has been calling out Chisora – who he beat in 2011 and 2014 – on social media, claiming he had offered Chisora £2 million for a fight and he then labelled 258 Management, who manage Joshua and Chisora, “sausages” for seemingly turning the offer down.

Chisora is adamant that no formal offer was received.

“The guy is bi-polar bro, that’s all I can say,” Chisora said. “He doesn’t know what he wants to do.”

Chisora added that Fury will fight again, in his opinion, and Fury would have been shocked by the Ring Magazine’s decision to strip him of their heavyweight belt when he announced his retirement.

When asked if he will fight Fury, Chisora said “we don’t know”, although he claimed that a fight would be difficult because of a deal Fury has, he claims, agreed to fight Joshua or Usyk.

“The Saudis have a two-fight deal with AJ, Usyk and Fury,” Chisora said. “This and then the winner fights Fury for undisputed.”

Chisora, who lost a decision to Usyk in the Ukrainian’s fight before he beat Joshua, says it will be a tough task for Joshua to beat Usyk.

“He has to be strong, he has to go hard and he has to box this fella, that’s a big ask,” Chisora said.

“We’ve only got a couple of days left. I showed you can cause Usyk problems, but you have to be fit, you have to go to the other side.

“He’s going to have to go there to get his titles back. And most boxers don’t want to go there.”

But Chisora believes any win for the former champion will have to come inside the distance.

“It has to be a knockout,” he said. “It won’t be on points, it has to be a knockout.”

While he is expecting different tactics from Joshua he says the plan first time last September was not necessarily bad.

“It worked well in the gym, but it didn’t work on fight night,” Chisora said. “That’s gone now, he’s got a rematch, so let’s see what happens now.

“You only have to look at his public workout this week and his last one to see the difference. This time he’s more intense, he wants to hurt him. There’s more aggression now and you’re going to see that on Saturday. Listen, he’s worked hard, he’s kept himself away from everything, he knows what he did wrong on that night so he’s coming to come back and sort it out.

“He wants to put things right.”

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.