Lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) let WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) this week that he doesn’t plan on fighting him again until he becomes better known in the United States. Fury wants Wilder to build his name up first in his own country before he faces him again.
Ultimately, both fighters’ careers will be hurt if they don’t face each other again, and right now there’s a lot of speculation about whether they ever will.
Fury signed with Top Rank Boxing this week, and the CEO of that company, Bob Arum, wants to let the Wilder-Fury fight marinate for a while. Arum says he wants to make the fight between them in the fall.
Arum says the rematch will be taking place in the fall after the two fighters become better known. There’s some doubt whether that’s going to happen, though. Arum has a number of heavyweights in his Top Rank stable that he might choose to match against Fury to keep him winning in order to build up his profile, and to bring in the subscribers to ESPN+.
“Get yourself a bit more well known in America first kid & then I’ll give you another chance,” Fury said on his social media site. “I already beat you and the world knows it, and so do you😉 [It] must be hard for you that a British fighter has taken over the USA 🇺🇸😉 watch me whippppp #ONLYINAMERICA @espn,” Fury said.
Fury is giving a good excuse for why he’s going to be ducking the rematch with Wilder. By telling Wilder that he needs to get better known in the U.S, it’ll go over well with the boxing fans that see that as a logical excuse. Top Rank promoter Arum is paying Fury a lot of money to fight for him now, and there’s no need for him to face Wilder ever again. If Fury is content to make good money fighting the guys in Arum’s Top Rank stable for years, a rematch with Wilder is going to be forgotten. What some believe is that Arum is going to build up Fury as much as he can by putting him in with guys he’s certain he can beat, and then when he’s as big a name as possible, he’ll match him against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. By that point, Wilder will likely be an after thought, as he’ll have been beaten by Joshua or one of the contenders.
If Fury fights Wilder in a rematch in May, he might lose to him, and Top Rank would be stuck with a fighter with no market value in the U.S. As such, it’s quite possible that Top Rank won’t put Fury in with Wilder until a much later point, possibly in a year or two. In the meantime, they can continue to attract interest in the Wilder vs. Fury II fight by saying the fight is just around the corner. In other words, this would be the same move that we saw with the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Paquiao fight. Mayweather’s name was mentioned repeatedly each time Pacquiao fight someone, and but then Top Rank wouldn’t put the fight together. It’s believed that the boxing fans were more interested in seeing Pacquiao’s fights only because they always believed that the Mayweather fight was just around the corner. After six years, the Mayweather-Pacquiao match was finally made in 2015. Once those two fought each other, Pacquiao’s popularity dropped off dramatically.
“The world knows I won the fight, as did you and your team,”, Fury said. “Fool me once shame on you, but you won’t fool me twice. Why would I go get robbed again on SHOWTIME. My team offered to do you a favor, pay you better and build your name, all be it as my workman, you big dosser @espn #MTKglobal.”
Fury, 30, and his fan base really believe that he deserved the victory over Wilder in last December. The judges scored the fight a 12 round draw, but SHOWTIME obviously had nothing to do with the scoring of the fight. They don’t control the judges. Fury lost out on winning the fight after he was knocked down twice in the championship rounds by Wilder. As a challenger, you’re not going to win against a world champion if you’re knocked down TWICE in a fight. It’s unheard of for a challenger to get knocked down twice by a champion, and still win the fight by a decision without scoring a knockdown on their part. Fury seems to be in denial about the fight, and is now coming up with a conspiracy theory to explain why he didn’t get the decision on the scorecards.
Fury flipped the script in telling Wilder that he’s the one that needs to become better known in his own country in the U.S rather than vice versa. The truth is, neither fighter is popular in the U.S, and they’re not going to become popular unless they fight quality opposition. If Arum is going to feed Fury the likes of Kubrat Pulev, Oscar Rivas, Andy Ruiz Jr., Joseph Parker and Bryant Jennings, he’s not going to become popular. Those are undercard level fights, and they won’t attract interest in the U.S no matter how much promoting Arum does.
“What an idiot, known is the fact your only highlight was you getting up off your back and since your known to snort s–t, this is what happens when your body is on drugs your body Resembles the effect of it,”Wilder said about Fury. “I’m the CHAMP #TilThisDay your nothing in USA if I don’t bless you fool.”
Wilder is not too happy about Fury choosing to let their fight marinate, and he let him know about it. Arum is willing to risk both fighters losing in their interim fights in order to let the fight marinate. You would think that Arum would have learned his lesson by now that it’s not a smart move for him to let big fights marinate. Arum tried that in the past with Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Yurirokis Gamboa, and it didn’t work. Lopez lost to Orlando Salido, and Gamboa got old waiting around.
It’s quite possible that Arum will instead look to match Fury against Joshua or someone like Oleksander Usyk in the U.S rather than ever letting him fight Wilder again. If someone beats Wilder before Arum makes his move to match him against Fury, then there will be no point in ever matching them against each other. Arum says it’s not the end of the world if one of them loses, but it might as well be, because Wilder and Fury are only known to the hardcore boxing fans in the U.S, and that’s not going to change anytime soon unless they fight each other or someone like Joshua.