Former two-time heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is expected to pile on the pounds for his fight with Anthony Joshua - a tactic which has backfired in the past

Tyson Fury looks set to weigh a whopping 280lb for all-British showdown with Anthony Joshua - a move which could prove costly.

Fury and Joshua will finally settle their decade-long feud on December 11 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. The 'Gypsy King' comes into the contest off the back of forcing Mariusz Wach to quit on his stool back in July, while Joshua survived two knockdowns to stop Kristian Prenga.

Prior to stopping Wach over in Thailand, Fury officially weighed in at 265lb. But for his meeting mouthwatering meeting with Joshua, he expects to weigh MORE. During a recent post uploaded to Instagram, the 38-year-old expects to tip the scales at 280lb. “Big boy 280lbs incoming. Not your average build! However, the love handles are used for energy," he wrote.

Most notably, it's still 1lb shy than what he weighed in for his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk two years. The Morecambe brawler put on the pounds in a bid to stop his foe early, but would go on to lose on points for a second time.

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Many questioned Fury's decision to pile on the muscle. Former three-weight world champion Duke McKenzie at the time was left bemused by Fury's choice to weigh 281lb for his rematch with Usyk. The 63-year-old believed that he would enter fight night more slower in the ring and be more predictable to read.

"He [Fury] doesn't live, eat, walk, talk the sport but you're supposed to," he told talkSPORT back in 2024. "In-between fights is where fights are won and lost. We know Fury blows up, puts on a load of weight between fights and then he has got to get rid of all that weight again.

"Now, they're trying to tell us that Fury is going to be bigger and better. Bigger and better isn't going to beat Usyk. It's really not. If he puts on more weight and thinks to himself 'I'm going to bully Usyk this time, I'm going to go in and walk him down, I'll be able to take his shots because I'm that much bigger', it's not going to work for him.

"He's going to be slower, he's going to be more predictable, he's going to get hit more and a lot sooner... Usyk wins the rematch all day long, I can't see how Tyson Fury beats him. He's not going to knock Usyk out. This guy is unbeaten, so you have to look for chinks in his armour. Has this guy got a bad engine? Does he get cut? Does he go down? Does he have to get up off the floor to win fights? Usyk doesn't have to do any of them, he's never shown a vulnerability."