By Sean Jones: Tickets are selling briskly for lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s next defense against Otto Wallin on September 14th, according to Top Rank boss Bob Arum. In the first day of tickets going on sales, over 1,000 tickets have been purchased, says Arum. It’s unclear if those were boxing fans or from ticket re-sellers.
Tyson Fury working hard in marketing his fight
Fury is doing a lot of early promotion for the Wallin fight by giving countless interviews with the boxing media. He’s arguably the most available fighter that this writer has seen from a heavyweight champion. Fury is literally everywhere giving interviews, and he seems tireless at his job of promoting the Wallin fight. It must be a dream for Arum to have a fighter willing to publicize his fight the way Fury is. The increase in Fury’s popularity is because of hard work he’s putting in. Obviously, it helps that Fury is fighting on ESPN.
Arum is quick to defend the choice of Wallin for Fury, saying that if fans aren’t pleased with this choice, then they don’t know boxing.
The fight will be shown on ESPN+, and it’s taking place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) and Arum have both been dumped on by fans for the choice of 6’6″ Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs), who is perceived as a big stiff with little talent. The fans see Wallin as Tom Schwarz 2.0. In other words, Wallin is another fighter with limited talent, a high ranking, and a resume filled with no names. Arum states that he came up empty when he tried to get better known heavyweights to face Fury. They all said no.
Arum defends the choice of Otto Wallin for Fury
“People who are unhappy about the opponent don’t know anything about boxing,” said Arum to Fighthub in talking about the Fury vs. Wallin. “He’s a big, hard Swedish guy, undefeated. Is he going to beat Tyson Fury? Hopefully not, but he certainly is in there with a chance.
It’s a good fight. You have to understand, there aren’t that many good world class fighters around in the heavyweight division that are willing to get in the ring with Tyson Fury. He was in the United States, and he spoke English. I tried some other fighters that are probably better known, and they turned it down. So we signed him as the best available. There were at least three other fighters that turned it down,” said Arum.
Fans wanted to see Fury fighting heavyweights that they’ve heard of, and have a lot of respect for. Wallin isn’t known, because he’s been fighting mostly in Europe since he turned pro in 2013. He did recently come to the U.S for a fight against Nick Kisner last April. Kisner isn’t a household name.
One of these fighters would have been a better choice for Fury:
- Michael Hunter
- Kubrat Pulev
- Joseph Parker
- Evgeny Romanov
- Filip Hrgovic
- Sergey Kuzmin
- Luis Ortiz
- Joe Joyce
- Daniel Dubois
- Oleksandr Usyk
Fans think Top Rank is spoon-feeding Fury
On social media the fans have been complaining steadily about the opposition that Top Rank has been feeding Fury since they signed him. The fans saw the Fury-Schartz mismatch, and many came away thinking that Top Rank is trying to built Fury up into a fake star before eventually matching him with Deontay Wilder.
The U.S fans have seen too many hyped heavyweights over the years that never panned out. Gerry Cooney and Tommy Morrison are two examples of fighters that were heavily hyped that were exposed when they stepped up against better opposition.
Fury failed to beat Wilder when he fought him last December, and he was lucky not to have been knocked out in the 12th. He was knocked out, but the referee gave a count while he was unconscious. Fury eventually woke up, but there were a lot of criticism leveled at the referee for him not stopping it. Wilder wasn’t happy about the results of the fight, as he thought he clearly won by knockout.
Fury vs. Wallin undercard
“It will be an array of Mexican fighters on the card,” said Arum about the Fury-Wallin undercard for September 14. “No, I think it’s going to do extremely well. The advance ticket sales are off the charts. They opened up ticket sales this morning, and in the first hour, we sold over 1,000 tickets. One fight that is settled is [Jose] Pedraza, and that’s a Puerto Rican, fighting [Jose] Zepeda.
It’s a tremendous fight at 140, and then we’re hoping the winner of Saturday’s fight comes out well, and we will then ask them to turn around [and fight in September]. Both are Mexicans. [Emmanuel] Navarrete has already said yes. We’re looking at [Carlos] Cuadras on the card, and we’re looking at a women’s fight with Jackie Nava. Gabe Flores is on the card,” said Arum.
Jose Pedraza vs. Jose Zepeda is a decent fight at 140, but those guys aren’t likely to win world titles in that weight class. Zepeda recently lost to WBC light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez last February. He’d have problems if he fought Josh Taylor or Regis Prograis. Those two are the cream of the crop at 140. Arum says that WBO super bantamweight champion Emmanuel Navarrete will be fighting on Fury-Wallin undercard. Navarrete fought last Saturday night in stopping Francisco De Vaca by a third round knockout in Los Angeles, California. Bringing Navarrete back so quickly can only mean one thing. He’s going to be fighting a weak opponent. That’s not good, because the main event is a lackluster affair.