Tyson Fury's next opponent is yet to be confirmed following Dillian Whyte's latest setback and with Anthony Joshua facing Oleksandr Usyk in a rematch next year

According to Manchester Evening News, It's been a complicated year for Tyson Fury fans, who have seen plans collapse, change at the last and become uncertain.

The big hope for 2021 was a unification bout against Anthony Joshua,  which was agreed to take place in Saudi Arabia last summer.

However, a judge in America ruled that Fury must honour his rematch clause with Deontay Wilder - and the heavyweight scene has dramatically changed since.

Fury, unsurprisingly, was the victor in the rematch in a fight that will go down as one of the best in recent boxing history. Regardless, it wasn't the fight that people wanted to see.

To make matters worse, Joshua's defeat to Oleksandr Usyk, which occurred in the weeks before Fury's victory in Las Vegas, means any unification bout between the two Brits is a way off.

For any chance for that to occur, Joshua will have to defeat Usyk in the rematch to win back his belts. The catch there is that the 2012 Olympian showed nothing in the first bout to suggest he can turn things around.

Again, it means those losing out are the fans. While a unification bout between Usyk and Fury would be a fierce contest, it's not the fight that people have been clamouring for.

While that situation will take time to be resolved, the more pressing situation is Fury's next opponent - with a wealth of uncertainty continuing to float around following the WBC's decision not to name Dillian

Fury will return to the ring in early 2022, extremely likely to be a mammoth UK homecoming for the heavyweight champion, but fans deserve a conclusive answer on what the plan is so they can build their excitement for such an occasion.

Given it's Fury's long-awaited return for a UK fight, the excitement levels would reach an unprecedented level and, in that sense, it's largely irrelevant who it is facing off against Fury.

Whether it be Whyte, Joe Joyce or someone entirely different, the key fact is given fans a date and time for the bout, following a number of years during the pandemic where everything has been subject to uncertainty.