Dillian Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn is insisting that Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder III should be canceled after learning that the fight could be moved to February 2021.
Hearn is ready to place Fury vs. Whyte in Saudi Arabia or the Matchroom Fight Camp, where he claims it’ll bring in 1.5-2 million buys on pay-per-view.
World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman has told WBC mandatory Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) that he can fight for the title by the end of February 2021. However, those plans will be dashed if Fury vs. Wilder 3 is moved to February 2021.
Fury vs. Wilder 3 possible for February 2021
Bob Arum, the promoter for Fury, wants to move his trilogy match from the end of December 2020 to February of next year to take advantage of the boxing fans possibly being allowed back into fights.
If Arum stages Fury-Wilder 3 this December, the chances are that the fans won’t be able to attend it live because of the rules against crowds. With a live gate, Fury-Wilder would make many millions.
Moving the fight to February of next year increases the chances that fans will be allowed back in by that time, provided there’s a vaccine by that point.
“If he does, then I think that fight should be canceled,” said Hearn to IFL TV in talking about the Wilder vs. Fury 3 fight getting moved to February 2021.
“I think Dillian Whyte should be enforced immediately as the mandatory for Tyson Fury. We’ve already got a deadline by the end of February. Why can’t they do the fight?”
Can Hearn stop the contractually bound Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight from taking place next February? We’ll have to see if that’s the case. You can understand it from Arum’s side why he’d want to wait until 2021 to schedule Fury’s fight against Wilder.
What Hearn doesn’t understand is how many boxing fans that will be angry at him if his actions lead to the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight being canceled. While some Brits would be interested in seeing Whyte and Fury fight, Americans won’t. They want to see Wilder and Fury battle it out again,
Fury-Wilder needs the gate revenue
Arum will argue that he needs more time to schedule Fury’s rematch with Wilder because of the pandemic. You can’t expect Arum, Fury, and Wilder to lose out on millions of dollars that will be generated from staging the fight in front of a live crowd in February.
For Wilder and Fury, this isn’t a simple fight that they can stage in Arum’s backyard in Beverly Hills, California. They need an audience to take advantage of the money they can make from that fight, and it’s not fair for them to miss out on all that revenue.
Whyte can afford to wait a little while longer for his title shot against the Fury-Wilder winner. It’s not going to be the end of the world if Whyte has to wait another four or five months for his title shot.
Hearn is leaving out the fact that Whyte still has to get past Alexander Povetkin on August 22 before an start looking to a title shot against Fury or Wilder. Whyte might not win that fight, and if he doesn’t, won’t Hearn look silly for all his complaining.
Whyte has Povetkin problems
Povetkin has only lost to Wladimir Klitschko and Anthony Joshua, and those are two fighters way out of Whyte’s league talent-wise. The former WBA heavyweight champion Povetkin has proven himself capable of beating the B and C-level heavyweights during his career.
Whyte is a B-level guy at best, but he borders on C-level when he’s not in shape like in his last fight against Mariusz Wach.
“The pay-per-view numbers are huge for that fight,” said Hearn of a fight between Fury and Whyte. “Why not do that now? But you’ve got to beat Povetkin. He [Arum] messaged me saying he wants to talk to me tomorrow, so we’ll see,” said Hearn.
“We can do Fury against Dillian Whyte now. We can do it on pay-per-view. It’s a monstrous fight. It does 1.5, 2 million buys. Anywhere,” s