With an official announcement we hope imminent, fight fans are bracing for the all-British heavyweight unification battle that is Tyson Fury Vs. Anthony Joshua. And Bob Arum, who has promoted or co-promoted his share of huge heavyweight fights over the years, thinks Fury-Joshua will probably prove to be “the biggest money fight in heavyweight boxing history.”
Speaking on the 3 Knockdown Rule Podcast, the Top Rank boss said he expects the fight to pull in an amazing 2 million PPV buys in the UK alone. Currently, the Joshua-Wladimir Klitschko fight of April 2017, and the Joshua-Andy Ruiz return fight from December of 2019, are the two most successful PPV British heavyweight fights, with both fights pulling in well over a million buys (the folks at Sky Sports never choose to release their boxing PPV numbers for some reason).
So can Fury-Joshua really reach two million homes, as Arum says?
“It will probably be the biggest money fight in heavyweight boxing history,” Arum said of Joshua-Fury. “There are all professionals working on it, and it’ll be massive. You can’t count your chickens before they hatch, but I am optimistic of how well this fight will do – both from the site standpoint and the pay-per-view standpoint. Particularly in the UK, where we think we’ll do over two million homes.”
The money this fight will pull in if it does do 2 million buys in the UK will really be something quite staggering. We have no official word yet on how much the Sky Sports Box-Office fee will be, but there have been suggestions the Fury-Joshua fight might cost a British fight fan as much as £39.99, or even £49.99. You can add it up and see how much money this fight will generate if it does pull in 2 million UK punters.
No wonder Arum is excited. No wonder Eddie Hearn is thrilled. And as for the two fighters, it has been suggested Fury and Joshua will each be paid something approaching $100 million, with the two giants to possibly have two super fights. From a cash standpoint, there will be no loser here. Both Joshua and Fury will be incredibly rich men come this summer.
You can see why people say this fight is simply too big not to happen. Still, until we get that official announcement……..