A trilogy fight against former adversary Deontay Wilder may seem like a step down compared to a undisputed title fight against Anthony Joshua, but according to WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, picking Wilder was necessary to avoid an $80 million damage.
Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua were set to face off against one another for the undisputed heavyweight championship, with Saudi Arabia targeted as the venue and 14th August aimed to be the scheduled date.
The much anticipated bout would have been Fury’s WBC title pitted against Joshua’s WBA (Super), WBO and IBF titles in a four-belt unification fight. Unfortunately, after Deontay Wilder won his arbitration case for the trilogy against the “Gypsy King”, and the two are set to fight for the third time on 9th October in Las Vegas.
However, in case Fury ignored Wilder’s case verdict and went with the Joshua fight, it would have costed him $80 million in damage, as the ‘Gypsy King’ revealed on Gary Neville’s The Overlap.
“A lot of people don’t know this but I’m not optimistic that the Joshua fight will ever happen. He talks a good game but is he really a boxing man? I’m not really too sure,” said Fury.
“All the talk was that me and Joshua were going to fight, no contracts were signed but then, all of a sudden, Deontay Wilder has put on an arbitration against me with a top judge and all the best lawyers in North America. I can’t do anything about that. If you want to bring a court case against me in America, even if I haven’t done anything, I’ve got to defend it otherwise I’m guilty, that’s how it works. So I said, let’s do it.
I was never really optimistic about the Joshua fight: Fury
Wilder, the former green and gold champion, who was defeated by Fury back in February 2020, had activated the dispute resolution provision which was included in the two fight contract he signed with the Gypsy King earlier.
“He wanted to go to court for the rematch, his contract had expired because of COVID, but to be honest with you, fair is fair, I’m an honest man and if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d want my fair fight because it wasn’t really my fault or Wilder’s fault why it happened, the world got turned on it’s head and it didn’t happen. So we’re on court and he won the case, the judge said fair is fair, give him the rematch, there’s not much I can do about that,” Fury added.
Even though Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is hopeful to host Fury vs Joshua sometime in next year, Fury is not very optimistic about the fight happening.
“It’s not the belt, it’s contracted to me, so it’s got nothing to do with the belt. Do you know how much the suing case was if I didn’t fight him? $80 million,” the Briton continued, “I was never really optimistic about the Joshua fight because all of this was going on in the background and they knew all that, Eddie Hearn knew it, Joshua knew it, but then all of a sudden it’s my fault.” [H/T BoxingScene]
