By Barry Holbrook: Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury will both receive a massive $75 million of the $155 million site fee for their undisputed heavyweight championship fight on August 14th in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
With the pay-per-view money, both fighters could wind up with over $100 million from this fight, which is the first of two in 2021.
There won’t be an official announcement until the final contracts have been sent.
$5 million of the $155M site fee will go to paying for the undercard along with other expenses, according to ESPN. The site fee smashes the previous $60 million site fee for the Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr rematch in December 2019 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As of now, Fury’s promoter Bob Arum says they still haven’t received the final contracts, but he feels optimistic that the money will be there. Fury reported to Sunday that he’d spoken to the Saudi defense secretary Prince Khalid Abdulaziz Al Saud.
“I just got off the phone with Prince Khalid of Saudi Arabia,” Fury told his followers on Twitter on Sunday. “He told me this fight is 100% on Aug. 14.”
Arum says the Joshua vs. Fury fight will take place at “around midnight Saudi time,” which would place at 5:00 p.m. ET in U.S time on August 14th. Having the fight staged in Jeddah, a city by the Red Sea, means the temperatures will be lower than if they had placed the card in Riyadh.
The only upsetting thing out of all this is that Joshua and Fury’s boxing fans won’t be able to see the fight live unless they have the funds and the desire to travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 14th.
It’s difficult for the average fans to imagine getting $75 million for one fight, as it’s a ton of money.
One would hope that Joshua and Fury don’t go through the motions for this fight, as we saw in the highly hyped ‘Fight of the Century’ between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao in 2015.
Those two made over $100 million each, and their fight failed to live up to expectations. Even the undercard seemed like it was cheaply thrown together with a lot of mismatches, filled with prospects and virtually no well-known fighters.
“The site fee, as previously reported by ESPN, is $155 million, according to sources,” said Mark Kriegel of ESPN. “The monies would include $75 million each for Fury and Joshua — as per the agreement between them, signed in March — and $5 million toward “expenses and undercard,” according to the sources.”
There’s no word from Arum on the situation with Fury’s arbitration situation with Deontay Wilder.
For Arum to be sounding so optimistic, it could mean that the arbitrator is going to rule in Fury’s favor to allow him to walk away from his rematch contract with Wilder.