Boxing: Why Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are still on different pages

Even during the brief hiatus, Fury remained the ghost of every heavyweight banquet.

Promoters, broadcasters and competitors were all talking as if they were in that room.

On Saturday in North London, he was back to his usual, unpredictable self.

As well as an emotional tribute to the late Ricky Hatton, there were moments mid-fight when Fury admired his own work and then the other side of his personality, the man who went on the verbal attack.

In many ways boxing missed him and the timing of Fury’s return was deliberate.

Hours after his victory, the second season of At Home with the Furys is released on Netflix. By connecting boxing to a platform of this scale, the sport has regained the mainstream visibility it has lacked since the terrestrial boom of the 1990s.

The streaming platform, which has 325 million subscribers worldwide, will announce viewing figures soon, but the Makhmudov bout could be one of the most watched boxing fights in the UK in recent years.

There would be even bigger fuss for the Fury-Joshua match.

Possible venues are currently being discussed. Croke Park has emerged as a leading contender, with a capacity of more than 80,000.

It would be an unusual setting for the biggest fight in British boxing history: a Dublin stage for the British competition.

But wherever it takes place, location is now almost secondary. The perfect moment may have passed, but the fascination refuses to fade.