By Allan Fox: Promoter Lou DiBella has serious doubts about the Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder 3 fight taking place in the fall as originally planned. According to DiBella, he thinks that fans won’t be willing to sit side by side to attend the fight during the pandemic. It would be too risky.
If the tickets do go on sale for the fight, Wilder and Fury’s promoters may be in for a shock if the fans aren’t purchasing like they did the first two fights. The question then will be, ‘Do they cancel the contest and reschedule in 2021?’ It’s possible.
With the Fury-Wilder trilogy match being too big to stage behind closed doors, it’s going to require fans to purchase tickets to see it live. Well, that’s going to be difficult with fans out of work, needing what little money they have to pay for food, rent, gas, and their mortgage.
The biggest fights won’t happen right away
“I think boxing is going to come back on a major platform, and the earliest it’ll be in is July, I believe,” said Dibella to Seconds Out. “I don’t think you’re going to see anything on a major platform before July, but there’s nothing wrong with wishful thinking right now. But even now, I think July is wishful thinking.
“And the f**** morons that think it’s coming back with the biggest and best fights should just stop. It’s not happening. You can’t leave ten to fifteen million dollars on the table for a mega-fight and put it in an empty room.
“On top of that, there’s going to be adjustments for fighters to their purses because the fighters that are guaranteed two or three million dollars per fight to fight an ordinary type of fight without losing substantial revenue, I don’t see how other networks and streaming services are going to be able to meet those expectations if the fighter isn’t willing to take a haircut himself or negotiation that situation himself.
“So I see some issues when it comes down to negotiating fighter’s purses. I think some good fights are going to come back, but not the biggest names fighting the biggest names,” said DiBella.
There’s no way that the biggest fights can take place in the summer if things remain as they are now. The governments will need to give the all-clear for crowds to attend live events, and the fans will need money to purchase the tickets. The big fights tend to have more expensive tickets, the public won’t be able to handle the costs if they’re out of work.
Fury vs. Wilder III won’t happen in fall
“That’s not going to happen in the beginning. I also think it’s going to be very difficult to make a number of the major fights when you can’t do it in a big room with an audience,” said DiBella.
“People that still think they’re going to Wilder vs. Fury 3 in the fall, I think that’s incredibly unlikely. I don’t think people are going to pay thousands of dollars to buy tickets and sit elbow to elbow while we’re still in a pandemic.
“We’re going to come back. Honestly, I think we’re going to come back when we come back. I think someone is going to push the waters by July. If you really wanted to push it now, you could probably find a place that would do it. But there are a lot of issues. How do you travel there, how do you do the requisite testing, and how do you do the medical testing?
“Can you get officials there, referees and judges? And can you get the rating organizations to send representatives? Some of that stuff is premature right now. So I think people are being unrealistic,” said DiBella.
It’s a combination of things that could make it impossible for the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight to take place in the fall. If the fight is pushed to 2021, things might not be any better until a vaccine is produced.
Once that happens, things could slowly return to normal at some point, but that’ll depend on how effective the vaccine is and how many people take the time to get it.
Boxing won’t return until mid-summer
“I’ve been consistent in saying this, I think it’s going to be mid-summer before anything comes back, and before we’re back with some semblance of normalcy, I don’t see that happening in 2020,” said DiBella. “I have no problem with that,” said DiBella in reacting to a comment made by Teofimo Lopez abut him not fighting again until crowds return.
“If he’s at the stage where he’s willing to sit out for six months. It’s not easy to perform in front of no one. He’s not the only athlete that has said they want to do that.
“And if he’s not willing to get paid and fight until things get normalized to some extent, I’m not willing to criticize him for that. I get it, and it’ll probably mean that he has to wait longer.
“And it’ll probably mean that he’ll be inactive for a period of time, but I have no problem with him having that point of view.
“I think that’s what most fighters are going to say, and that’s why I don’t think thing are going to get to normal so quickly,” said DiBella when told that fighters want promoter Eddie Hearn to find a way to keep their purses to where they were before the pandemic,” said DiBella.
Lou is obviously talking about the small fights, but that might be as good as it gets for fans in 2020. The wealthy big-name boxers won’t want to give up the loss of revenue from their gate money from ticket purchasers.
The fighters that need money will be the first back
“It’s going to be the fighters that are making the most money,” said DiBella. “I could make some great matches for a 100,000 quid a match. Great matches. 50-50 fights with world-class fighters, and those guys are dying to get back in the ring because they have to pay their rent and their mortgages.
“No mortgages because those people don’t even have houses. The fighters I’m talking about are the ones fighting so that they can get to the point where they can buy a home. I’m talking about the fighters that need to pay rent and put food on the table.
“Those are the fighters that are going to be willing to fight. But the guy that just made $2 million to fight Bozo the Clown isn’t going t take $2 million to fight his biggest rival in an empty room.
“And I also think there’s going to be more pressure on the promoters that have been playing with funny money, particularly the ones that have been playing with streaming money when there was a bubble in spending.
“I don’t expect their fighters to adjust to a new marketplace overnight. It’s not human nature, and I think there’s going to be a lot more pressure on those guys when UFC comes back in May. Why would they [TV] bear the burden? Has anyone looked at Viacom’s stock recently?
“For example, Viacom on Showtime. Look at their stock where it is right now compared to where it was in January. Disney owns ESPN, and they’re being slaughtered with all their worldwide amusement parks. Disneyland, Disneyworld, and all their Disney parks are closed. That’s an incredible source of revenue,” said DiBella.
There’s a good possibility that the ONLY fights that fans see in 2020 are the non-stars.
Many Fans won’t attend fights during the pandemic
“Why do they think people are going to come back in the middle of a pandemic when they’re making their employees and executives take pay cuts and pay more money to some mother f*** beat the heck out of each other? I don’t want to down my own sport, but it wasn’t as if we were exactly killing it before the pandemic.
“I think most pundits and serious writers and real people that understand the market place believed that there was going to be an economic adjustment in boxing without this pandemic. Everyone was talking about that, and it was obvious we were moving in that direction.
“So to think that people are going to dip into their pocket and take a further hit during unprecedented economic times, it’s foolish to think that. If we’re going to be in an empty room, I’d rather see two evenly matched world-rated guys that are world-class but not superstars.
“I’d rather see guys like that where the outcome is in doubt, and it’s a really great fight rather than watch some really great fighter fight an ordinary guy in an empty room with no energy, no life, no competitiveness.
“I want to be entertained. And I don’t want to see a champion fight an ordinary guy in an empty room. I don’t care about that,” said DiBella.
Stars like Wilder and Fury won’t agree to stage their fight without fans and lose out on millions.
For that reason, we may not see that fight until 2021. It’ll be interesting to see if Fury and Wilder change their mind and decide to stage the fight without fans.
