Sky Sports’ Head of Boxing Adam Smith has detailed text conversations he’s had with Tyson Fury about a potential fight with Anthony Joshua next year.

Smith explained that the recent positive back and forth between Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren has started to bridge the gap between the Sky side and BT Sport fighters.

He recently interviewed Fury for Sky and so has been exchanging messages with him.

Smith told SecondsOut: “The guys on my team, the editorial/digital guys were like, ‘Let’s get hold of Tyson Fury.’

“I was like, ‘Look, if you can get an interview with Tyson Fury, great.’

“It sort of came about and we did an interview. He was great fun and I said, ‘Let’s do it again.’

“Just little things, the horse [called] Tyson Fury ran the other day in the St Leger so I messaged him.

“He said, ‘He’s unbeaten the horse, he’s a big outsider, who knows, maybe we’ll get a good run with him.’

“Listen, we’re having a bit of fun. I think everybody’s getting a bit closer…

“I think he really respects Anthony Joshua.

“They might not mention it now but they have talked off the record before, winding each other up…

“It’s a great fight that we could see two or three times. He’s more sort of, ‘Come on, let’s get this fight, we all want to see it happen.’

“He doesn’t care, it was more like, ‘Well, Dillian Whyte’s next in line for you.’

“And he’s like, ‘I don’t care about Dillian Whyte, I want to fight Joshua.’ He wants to fight Joshua and Joshua wants to fight him.”

Smith concluded: “I think he just wants to get the big fights on.

“He’s saying to me, ‘I don’t want to do any interviews until I’ve got something to say,’ and then he says something.

“But he doesn’t want to, he wants to talk about fights, he said, ‘We can’t have fights with no crowds, we need crowds.’

“I think he’s desperate to get back into a ring and so is Anthony.”