Tyson Fury’s Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said today that the trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) will be taking place on July 24th in Las Vegas, Nevada and that there was never a request for a step aside payment.
(Photo credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)
Arum is confident that his fighter WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will make easy work of Wilder, and he’ll then negotiate the match with Anthony Joshua for November or December.
Although some would say that Team Fury’s overconfidence is what got them into the mess they’re in right now. They thought the arbitration case would go in their favor, but unfortunately, it didn’t.
“July 24th in Las Vegas,” said Fury’s promoter Bob Arum to iFL TV on when the trilogy fight will take place with Wilder.
“We’re now talking to the people at the Allegiant Stadium, T-Mobile, MGM, and we’ll figure out jointly by the end of the week which venue we’ll be using and that won’t be a problem, but it’ll definitely be here in Las Vegas,” said Arum.
It sounds like there was never remotely any possibility of a step aside deal being made. Arum didn’t say whether they attempted to make a deal with Wilder, which likely means that they never considered the idea.
That’s too bad because if Fury loses to Wilder, he can say goodbye to his dreams of fighting Joshua.
For Arum’s plans to work out, Fury will need to beat Wilder, and IBF/WBA/WBO champion Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) will need to defeat his WBO mandatory Oleksandr Usyk in August.
“I think Tyson knocks him out quicker this time than last time,” Arum said
If either of those fights doesn’t go the way Arum envisions them, we’ll see a whole different fight in November or December. Shudder the thought. We could see Wilder vs. Usyk in December.
That’s a good fight, but it won’t be the big money match-up between Joshua and Fury that we would have seen on August 14th if the ‘Gypsy King’ had honored his rematch clause with Wilder instead of walking away from it.
Vegas is a nice place to stage the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight, but it’s not the Saudi Arabia location where ‘The Gypsy King had planned on fight next.
It’s great that the U.S boxing fans will easily see the Fury-Wilder 3 fight, as they won’t have to travel far.
This is a fight that was supposed to happen last year, but it was put off due to the COVID 19 pandemic and Wilder’s right bicep surgery.
“I don’t know that as being a fact,” said Arum about Fury’s comment this week that Wilder asked for a $20M step aside fee.
“What I got was that he [Deontay was throwing out a number maybe with the idea that he wasn’t going to step aside.
“He has a lot of pride, Wilder, and this was his opportunity to fight for the title and get some revenge against Tyson Fury.
“I don’t think it was a money grab completely because we never had any negotiation really about a step aside fee [for Wilder],” said Arum.
Wilder has been talking about wanting Fury’s “blood” this week, which is a clear sign that he wouldn’t agree to a step aside deal unless they threw a crazy number at him.
With the $155 million site fee available for the Joshua-Fury fight on August 14th in Saudi, there was plenty of money for a step aside to be given to Wilder.
Interestingly, Team Fury chose not even to attempt to move Wilder out of the way. The only thing you can say about that is they’re so confident that they’re going to win that fight. They didn’t see Wilder as someone worth avoiding.
Again, this could backfire on them if Wilder catches the flabby-bellied Fury with a big right hand and knocks him out cold. If that happens, it would be a second example of Team Fury making the wrong decision for Wilder.
