Tyson Fury in talks over shock summer bout against Demsey McKean in Australia

The search for an opponent for Fury goes on, with a potential July bout against Andy Ruiz Jr falling through due to financial demands and Zhilei Zhang also seemingly off the table after Joe Joyce activated his rematch clause to take on the Chinese fighter once again.

It is still hoped that Fury will fight Oleksandr Usyk in December, as part of Saudi Arabia’s huge-money plans that would also see Anthony Joshua fight Deontay Wilder on the same night. The winners of those two fights would then be set to fight each other next year.

Fury has not fought since December, when cruising to victory over Derek Chisora, and since then talks over an April date for the undisputed bout with Usyk to take place at Wembley Stadium collapsed after weeks of very public negotiations.

Whether that big night of heavyweight boxing takes place at the end of the year in Saudi remains to be seen, but for now the focus for Fury and his team is on finding an opponent for this summer, with time running out.

The WBC champion is currently in Australia, supporting friend and former world champion Joseph Parker, and has claimed he will be travelling around the country looking at potential venues for a fight of his own.

That could well come against unbeaten heavyweight McKean, who is ranked 36th by the WBC and promoted by Eddie Hearn. McKean’s manager Angelo Di Carlo revealed that there are negotiations taking place for his man to fight Fury Down Under in August.

“Chats began some time ago for Demsey to fight Tyson Fury in Australia and I think Demsey is the best option for the Gypsy King,” Di Carlo told News Corp.

“We’re certainly keen to do the fight. We’ve had a good association with Matchroom (McKean’s promoters) and we have great respect for Eddie Hearn (Matchroom boss), but I’ll have more talks with Fury’s camp and see where that takes us.

“If Tyson Fury wants to fight in Australia, the logical option is to fight an Aussie fighter and talking to Fury’s people, they don’t want to fight a small heavyweight. Demsey is six foot six and being a southpaw, he would present a real test for Tyson.

“We’ve been given a possible date to fight Fury in August, so hopefully we can make it happen.”