By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury’s dad John is distraught at his son losing out on a massive $80 million payday to fight Anthony Joshua due to his arbitration case with Deontay Wilder.
With Fury (30-0-1 21 KOs) now having to face a highly motivated former WBC heavyweight champion ‘Bronze Bomber Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) on July 24th for a lot less money, there’s a possibility of complacency, which could result in Tyson losing.
John says Fury’s American promoters at Top Rank could have stopped the Wilder situation last December by giving up the WBC belt when they had the opportunity.
Instead, they thought they would win the arbitration case, and they failed miserably at doing that with Wilder winning.
So now, instead of Fury making a massive $80M, he’ll be lucky to get $20 million to fight Wilder, and there will be a whole lot of risk in that fight.
If he knocks Fury out, that $80 million that he could have gotten to fight Anthony Joshua will be gone forever.
John Fury worried about Tyson losing
“I’m just worried if Tyson can raise his game for Wilder,” said John Fury to BT Sport Boxing. “Whether he gets complacent and makes a mistake.
“He’s got a chance of going wrong out there. I don’t like how it’s been handled; it’s been badly handled. The danger is getting fair play out there,” said John Fury about Fury fighting Wilder in America.
“The American boxing fraternity’s been embarrassed from the last escapade.
“Why wouldn’t you take a $20 million step aside without fighting when you get a guaranteed shot at the winner when you’re fighting for a lot less than $20 million, and you’re risking getting your skull caved in again?” John said about Wilder not agreeing to a step aside to let Fury face Anthony Joshua on August 14th
. “It doesn’t make sense on his part. So obviously, the powers that be are involved obviously. They’re calling the shots, and they’ve trapped both men, haven’t they?
“I’d just say, ‘Listen, there’s your belt, keep it. There’s your belt; I’m fighting AJ. Or, if you want to fight, no problem. I’ll fight you in Saudi,’ and then the Saudis are happy because they’ve gone through a lot of trouble, those people.
“They’ve gone through a lot of running around with a lot of expense. They deserve better than what’ happened. I just feel like they’ve done it all wrong,” said John Fury.
John should be plenty worried about Fury losing this fight because there’s an excellent chance he could lose to Deontay. Fury doesn’t appear to be working hard in the gym because Wilder is at his home-built gym.
All the running around that Fury is doing in turning himself into a busy-bee celebrity; it looked like he’s got his priorities mixed up.
Instead of realizing what got him to this point in his career was the sweat and hard work he put in the gym, Fury forgets all that prancing around like a movie star.
The Fury – Wilder arbitration could have been quashed
“I was told arbitration was not a problem,” said John about the Fury vs. Wilder. “All of a sudden, it is a problem.
“This arbitration could’ve been squashed in December, but they didn’t squash it. I can rattle on all day. The public knows they’re not fools. Garbage.
“Both men can get beat. AJ can get beat, and so can Tyson,” said John about Fury’s trilogy with Wilder and Joshua’s match against Oleksandr Usyk.
“Both men can get complacent, and then all of a sudden, they’re geared up to fight somebody else. We had the biggest fight in history, and then all of a sudden, what have we got?
“Two warmup fights in between. I’d say, ‘Keep your WBC belt; I’m out of there. And I’m fighting AJ with a belt or without it. I’m sure people still want it,” John said.
It’s unclear whether the arbitration could have been avoided by Fury vacating his WBC title last year. If the rematch clause had nothing to do with Fury’s WBC title, he would have had to fight Wilder anyway.
In hindsight, Fury should have done the right thing by fighting Wilder last December, and if they had done that, it would be over with as long as he won.
John: The Americans never wanted Joshua vs. Fury:
“Everybody seems to be doing what Bob Arum says,” said John Fury. “He’s probably got his intentions right, but it’s all about money and what they can do.
“All of this benefits the Americans because they never wanted the Saudi fight, did they? Tyson wanted it, I wanted it, and everybody in the world wanted it.
“What have we got? Deontay Wilder. We beat him to pieces, and he wasn’t even a fight. You can get complacent, and you’ll probably see a different Deontay Wilder this time.
“It’s probably going to be a lot different. AJ and Usyk. It’s not going to match up to what we’re going, none of it,” said John Fury.
It does seem suspicious the way that Fury’s American promoter Bob Arum was sounding so negative about Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn’s chances of putting together a site deal for the Joshua-Fury fight.
The way that Arum was talking gave the impression that he wanted Hearn to fail to make the trilogy match between Fury and Wilder.
You can understand what Arum’s rationale would be for Fury fighting Wilder instead of Joshua. First off, there’s excellent money on the table still for the third match between Wilder and Fury.
That money wouldn’t be there if Wilder were to get beaten by one of the contenders while waiting for the dust to clear from a Joshua vs. Fury fight in August.
Secondly, Fury needed a tune-up fight in the worst way due to him having been out of the ring for a year and a half since his win over Deontay last year in February.
When you look at the big picture, it makes perfect sense for Fury to fight Wilder first before fighting Joshua.
Of course, there’s risk involved because Fury could lose to Wilder if he gets nailed by his big eraser, but Top Rank is betting that won’t happen.
Wilder looked so inept a year ago that Arum and Top Rank likely don’t believe that Fury will lose the trilogy for a second. If Charles Brun were in Arum’s shoes, he’d play it in the same way by letting Fury fight Wilder first to get the money that is still on the table for that match.
If they wait, someone could come along and finish off Wilder once and for good by knocking him out.
