By Mike Smith: The venue for the December 1st fight between WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury has been finalized for the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, according to RingTV.
The other venue that was in the running for the Wilder-Fury fight was the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Staples Center won out, and it’ll now be the place where the 6’7” Wilder be defending his World Boxing Council heavyweight title against former IBF/WBA/WBO champion Fury on December 1. The fight will be televised on Showtime pay-per-view.
There will be a news conference for the Wilder vs. Fury fight on Monday in London, England. From there, Wilder and Fury will be traveling to New York and then Los Angeles for the last two cities of the press tour.
Fury, 29, is coming into the fight with Wilder following two less than impressive wins over Francesco Pianeta and Sefer Seferi. Although Fury won both fights, he looked rusty and not nearly the fighter he was before his three-year absence from boxing. Fury needs to be a lot better than that for him to beat the big punching Wilder.
For his part, the 32-year-old Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) is coming off of a career best 10th round knockout over his toughest opponent of his 10-year pro career in Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz last March in a fight in which both guys were badly hurt. Wilder weathered the storm in round 7, and thanks to the New York Athletic Commission delaying the start of round 8, he was able to recover from the previous round.
Wilder hoped that his win over Ortiz would lead him to a unification fight against IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua, but he and his promoter Eddie Hearn decided to take a fight against WBA mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin instead. Team Wilder lucked out with Fury showing interest in facing him, so now the two are set for a fight on December 1. If Wilder can beat Fury, he’ll be the lineal champion.
Fury’s resume is unimpressive aside from an upset win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. That was the high point of Fury’s career thus far. He was out of action after that due to a witch’s brew of personal problems and a positive test for a banned substance. According to RingTV, Fury will be training at Big Bear, California at Abel Sanchez’s gym. Sanchez is the trainer for former IBF, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Heavyweight prospect Joe Joyce of England trains with Sanchez at Big Bear. Joyce captured a Silver medal in the 2016 Olympics. Fury plans on sparring the big 6’6” Joyce, which should toughen him up to get him ready for the fireworks that he’ll be seeing against Wilder on December 1.
This will be Wilder’s first fight on pay-per-view as a headliner. Fury and Wilder should do a great job of selling their fight to U.S and UK audiences with their personalities.
Fury took issue with Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn telling the media that he’s the “most unenteraining” fighter in boxing. Fury said this in response on social media:
”There is a certain daddy’s boy [Eddie Hearn], who offered me millions of pounds to sign a contract with him. Because he didn’t get GK, he now says I’m the worst fighter he has ever seen. Bitter little spoiled punk.”
Fury wants to fight Joshua in the future, as does Wilder. Joshua and his promoter Hearn are open to facing either of them and are willing to face he loser as well. Joshua has limited options for big money fight in the heavyweight division. Joshua created a Twitter poll asking his boxing fans to select his next opponent. Wilder narrowly beat out Fury with Dillian Whyte trailing far behind those two in the poll.