Fury vs. Wallin – Arum providing TERRIBLE fights says Hearn

By Boxing News - 09/10/2019 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Tyson Fury’s fight this Saturday night against Swedish heavyweight Otto Wallin hasn’t attracted much interest from fans. Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn says Fury’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank might be having some trouble sleeping nowadays, because he’s setting up such “terrible” fights.

The reason Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) is fighting the unknown heavyweight Wallin on Saturday is because Top Rank couldn’t afford a good opponent, says Hearn. After paying Fury a ton of money to sign him to their promotional company, they don’t have enough left to afford good opponents for him to fight, according to Hearn.

In Fury’s first fight with Top Rank, he fought Tom Schwarz last June. Fury stopped him in the second round. Now Fury is about to fight Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs). Wallin is viewed as either worse than Schwarz or just as bad. Either way, Wallin isn’t highly thought of by boxing fans.

Hearn isn’t specifically referring to the Fury vs. Wallin fight, but its likely that’s what he’s talking about. Top Rank former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin for Fury, but they couldn’t afford him, according to Hearn.

Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) is a big favorite against Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs) in their scheduled 12 round fight on ESPN+ from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hearn says Top Rank failed to get Povetkin for Fury

“You’ve got to respect Fury for getting that deal with Top Rank,” said Hearn to Fighthub. “Bob Arum might not sleep at night, because he’s provided terrible fights that no one wants to watch. They tried, but they didn’t want to pay the money,” said Hearn in explaining his rationale for some of Top Rank’s fights not being competitive match-ups. “[Alexander] Povetkin accepted the fight [against Fury] for a certain amount of money, and they didn’t want to pay it,” said Hearn.

If it’s true that Top Rank doesn’t have money left over to get good opposition for Fury to fight, then he doesn’t have much to look forward to in terms of competition until he faces Deontay Wilder next February.

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“He did [want to fight Fury], but he didn’t accept their offer,” said Hearn about Povetkin. “He accepted the fight at a certain amount of money. They could have gotten anybody they wanted if they paid the right amount of money. They don’t have enough money left, because they gave it all to Fury,” said Hearn.