By Chris William: Tyson Fury’s promoter Bob Arum is predicting the rematch with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder will do over 2 million+ pay-per-view buys on February 22. That’s a number that would be for above the 325,000 PPV buys the previous Wilder-Fury fight brought in last December.
Arum: Wilder-Fury 2 does over 2 million pay-per-view buys
‘With ESPN and FOX backing the promotion, and with Comcast really, and the cable systems really enthusiastic, I’m looking at doing in excess of two million pay-per-view buys,” Arum said to the Everlast TALKBOX podcast.
The 2 million+ buys for the Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch sounds like a number that is unrealistic, but it’s not surprising Arum is predicting huge numbers. It’s a good fight between them, but the basic problem is Fury has a boring style of fighting, and he hasn’t fought anyone good since his draw with Wilder last December.
Fury’s recent matches against European heavyweights Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin failed to interest the American boxing fans, and it was a waste of time by Top Rank to make those matches.
Top Rank would have been better of putting Fury back in with Wilder immediately rather than pouring their money down the drain in putting Tyson in with Wallin and Schwarz.
Wilder vs. Fury will be BIGGEST fight in heavyweight history – Arum
“I think it will be one of the biggest fights in recent heavyweight history,” said Arum in talking about the Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch. “I think my guy is not (like) Ortiz. My guy is a consummate boxer and I think that he will stay away from the one weapon that Wilder has – which is tremendous – and that is the right hand.
“If he stays away from that, he wins the fight easy, but iif he gets knocked down he has shown that he has the capacity to get up and continue fighting,” said Arum about Fury.
It’s not going to be easy for Fury to keep out of range of Wilder’s right hand for the full 12 rounds, because he’ll connect eventually.
Arum was nervous when Wilder was losing to Ortiz
“I was very grateful when the punch landed, because Wilder sure as hell wasn’t winning that fight,” said Bob Arum to Boxeo Mundial about Wilder’s come from being 7th round knockout win over Luis Ortiz.”It was very, very nervous, and I was pleased to see that punch, and it makes for a big fight.
“I didn’t think he [Wilder] was winning. He was lucky to have one round. Most everyone thought that Fury won the previous fight [against Wilder]. I think it’s very, very hard when they’re looking down the road to fight each other,” said Arum.
A lot of people were nervous at seeing Wilder getting beaten by Ortiz. People want to see Wilder and Fury do it again, and Ortiz was on the verge of pulling an upset.
Arum explains his theory for why Fury and Wilder didn’t perform well in last fights
“They can’t help but to..the performances weren’t the best that they gave for each of them,” said Arum.
Fury didn’t perform well against the 6′ 5½″ Otto Wallin is because he was facing young guy with a lot of size, and decent boxing skills. Since Fury can’t punch, he was forced to go the full 12 rounds to win. Fury didn’t look good because was fighting a guy that was big enough to reach his chin, and fearless. Wallin fought under control, and wasn’t throwing wild shots at Fury the way Wilder did.
In Wilder’s case, he looked bad against Luis Ortiz because he was fighting a guy with better boxing skills than him. Deontay didn’t struggle because he was looking past Ortiz towards a rematch with Fury. That’s not the reason. Wilder tried his best, but he was getting schooled by a better fighter. What saved Wilder was his power. If not for Wilder’s right hand power, he would have lost.
Deontay could be biggest puncher in heavyweight history
“Wilder is a different type of puncher,” said Arum when asked if Wilder is the biggest puncher in boxing history. “[George] Foreman had that thudding punch. Wilder’s punches are a lot like [Mike] Tyson’s.
They’re really powerful. Whether he’s [Wilder] the hardest puncher in boxing history, I would say there’s a good argument for that. And that’s why people are fascinated, because no matter how far Tyson gets ahead in the fight, people will always be looking for that one punch. Yeah, it’ll be a great event,” said Arum.
There’s a lot of boxing fans that believe that Wilder is the biggest puncher in the history of the sport, but we’ll never know for sure. There’s no way of testing the power of fighters from different eras. Wilder might be the biggest puncher in the current era, but we can’t even know that for sure.
Anthony Joshua hits really hard as well. He doesn’t have as many one-punch knockouts as Wilder has, but he hasn’t fought the same guys as him. Perhaps if Joshua fought the same fighters Wilder has fought, he’d have similar one-punch knockout wins.
Fury’s cut is completely healed after seeing plastic surgeon – Arum
“I saw him when he was getting ready for the WWE, and everything was healed, because he had great care when he had a plastic surgeon here,” said Arum when asked about Fury’s cut from the Otto Wallin fight.
“When he went back to the UK, the leading plastic surgeon in the UK took are of him, and you don’t see anything now, and it’s completely healed. It’s not for sure, but we hope it’ll be at the MGM Grand,” said Arum about the Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch location.
Arum says Fury’s cut from the Wallin fight is completely healed, but is it? No matter how good a plastic surgeon is, they’re not going to be able to fix a cut like the one Fury suffered. He needed 46 stitches to close the cut under his right eye. A plastic surgeon can repair the cut a little better, but the fighter is still going to have problems once they get hit.
Arum likely is sounding upbeat in order to keep the fans interested in wanting to see the Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch. If he said it like it is, and told the fans that he’s worried too about Fury’s cut, it might cause fans to lose interest in the fight.
Top Rank delayed Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch
There would have been an immediate rematch between the two giant heavyweights, but Fury signed a 5-fight deal with ESPN and Top Rank for $100 million (£80 million). They chose to let the Wilder vs. Fury 2 rematch marinate to build interest.
Top Rank promoter Arum believes that with the marinating that he’s done in delaying the Wilder-Fury rematch for 14 months, the fight will do far more buys than the first time. His belief is the combination of having the Wilder vs. Fury rematch shown on ESPN PPV and Fox Sports PPV will help bring in a lot more buys than the first time around.
Fury has also been seen by the casual boxing fans in the U.S in two additional fights against Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin, as well as his WWE match against Braun Strowman last October.
Wilder and Fury fought to a 12 round draw last December in the United States. Fury connected on 84 of 327 punches for a connect percentage of 26. Wilder landed 71 of 430 punches for a 17% connect rate. The difference is that Wilder landed the much harder punches the entire fight.
Although Fury landed 13 more punches in the fight, they were weaker, slapping shots that were nowhere near as powerful as the punches that Wilder connected. A lot of casual boxing failed to understand that judges score fights based on clean effective punching, and Wilder’s shots were a lot harder than Fury’s. That won’t change in the rematch. Fury is still basically a slapper.