Tyson Fury has aimed a fresh dig at heavyweight rival Anthony Joshua as the Gypsy King insisted he could 'drink 14 pints' and still defeat the WBO, WBA and IBF champion. 

An agreement over a £200m unification bout between Fury and AJ is believed to be close, with the victor set to become the first heavyweight to hold all the belts simultaneously since Lennox Lewis in 1999.

The three promoters at the centre of the talks, Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren and Bob Arum, have all spoken enthusiastically about a deal being agreed with the latter declaring recently that all the issues holding up the announcement have been resolved.

However, the Gypsy King has been in peculiar mood of late, revealing earlier this week that he is on holiday 'drinking up to 12 pints a day' and has stopped training altogether.  

Fury, who says he has been left in the dark over the proposed deal, has already ramped up the mind games, insisting that he does not need to be in peak condition to defeat his British rival.  

'I could drink 14 pints of beer and still give AJ a hiding, no problem,' the WBC champion told MTK Global live via talkSPORT. 

'Everyone in the building knows more about this fight than I do actually. Apparently it's done, it's signed, we've got a date, venue – news to me, I don't know anything…

'I'm looking for a challenge, I've been looking, searching the world for 13 years as a professional to find a man who can better me. I just can't find him.'

Fury doubled down on his view that he need not train excessively for his rival champion, adding that he only needs to spar 'local binmen and strongmen' to prepare for AJ's body type.

'I'm not training anymore. Until I get a date, then I go back into training camp,' he added. 'I only need six, seven weeks anyway for these bums and that's it.

'I don't need no big, great sparring partners for a methodical bodybuilding type of guy. I just need the local binmen, firemen and local strongmen.'

Fury was last in action in February 2020 when he put in a career-best performance to defeat knockout artist Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas for the WBC belt. 

The American has long called for a trilogy bout with the Gypsy King, offering up a plethora of excuses for his poor display. 

'I'm sure he's got to make all these excuses up in his own mind because maybe one day he'll have to fight me again,' Fury said of Wilder.

'When he does, I'll absolutely destroy him even easier than I did this time. This time wasn't even a boxing match, wasn't even a contest. He hit me about three times in seven rounds.

'I'm gonna take him out in one, two rounds, proper annihilate him.'