Tyson Fury’s promoter Bob Arum was livid about how lax things had gotten during his training camp before he ultimately tested positive for COVID-19, which resulted in his July 24th trilogy match against former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder being postponed.
Some believe that Fury didn’t want to fight Wilder and that he was careless on purpose. Moreover, Fury didn’t seem all that enthused with fighting Anything Joshua either.
When Eddie Hearn was working on setting up an August 14th fight with Joshua in Saudi Arabia, Fury was complaining about ring rust, sounding like he wasn’t eager to take the fight with AJ.
Fury blew it by only getting one shot instead of two of the Covid-19 vaccination. He was careless, believing that a second shot might result in him getting adverse reactions.
When Fury did test positive for Covid, the illness only lasted for a short period from July 5th to July 8th. Nevertheless, the fight with Wilder was still postponed until October 9th.
The Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight has been rescheduled for October 9th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
According to the Top Rank promoter Arum, Fury and his gym had no controls, with people coming and going. They were acting as if the
Arum let them have it
“I never knew that he hadn’t (received his second Covid-19 vaccination shot) until he got sick,” said Arum to WBN on Fury. “I really screamed at all of them. It was a complete f*** up.
“The people in the gym, I mean, we had no controls. It was like every sparring partner brought his friend, other corner people. SugarHill had these Russians (he trains) running around.
“There was absolutely no precaution taken, which a lot of it was our fault. We should have been the adult in the room.”
What Arum says about there being no precautions in Fury’s camp feeds into what boxing fans say that Fury NEVER wanted the third fight with Deontay.
So instead of getting his second shot and controlling his training camp to guard against the dreaded COVID-19 virus, Fury took a casual laissez-faire approach, letting the worst happen.
It’s hard to understand what Fury would gain in intentionally letting himself get sick with Covid. There’s no upside for Fury besides getting more time to train and bulk up for the trilogy match.
He’s only bought himself three months of training time to prepare. That training time could help Wilder more than Fury because he’s with a new coach Malik Scott, and he’s changing his fighting style, taking advantage of his mobility by enhancing it for the first time in his career.
What we’ve seen of Wilder is a fighter that is quite nimble on his feet, even smother than Wladimir Klitschko used to be. Wilder moves really well around the ring, and even Anthony Joshua isn’t as smooth.
Team Wilder did the right thing, says Arum
“They did the right thing, and they’re to be commended, and we didn’t do the right thing,” Arum said. “We were operating in the haze that the pandemic was over.”
Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) wasn’t going to chance-it by being slack with his vaccinations and control of his training camp. He WANTS this fight because he’s on a mission for retribution and says he wants to end Fury’s career.
If Wilder puts Fury on his back as he did in their first fight in 2018, he might not make it up in time before the referee halts it. The way that Wilder is training, he’s going to be looking to put a hurting on Fury with each punch he throws on October 9th.