By Max Schramm: Tyson Fury tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday, July 13th, and he’s now been cleared medically to fight Deontay Wilder on their rescheduled date of October 9th at the T–Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Dan Rafael is reporting the negative test for COVID-19 for WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), and he’s been given clearance to fly back home to England.
The brief illness kept the 32-year-old Fury out of the gym for several days, but he’s licked the problem and is ready to get back to work.
The Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder 3 trilogy fight was announced for the rescheduled date of October 9th on ESPN pay-per-view and FOX Sports pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Although Fury was unable to train for several days due to having COVID-19, he tested negative for the disease on Tuesday and was cleared by his doctor,” said @DanRafael1.
Some boxing fans on social media are less than happy, particularly after learning that Fury was only sick for several days.
They don’t understand how the fight with Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) could be postponed for three months until October 9th, when Fury was only sick for three days.
This thing sounds fishy in the eyes of boxing fans, and they want to see the doctor’s note that backs up Fury’s claim that he had COVID-19 because they think it was just a ploy due to a variety of reasons.
One of them is the comment that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said about the ticket sales for the Fury vs. Wilder III fight being poor for the July 24th date. Hearn described the ticket sales as being “disastrous,” with approximately 30% sold.
Fans saw photos of Fury at a casino in Las Vegas this week, and naturally, they’re assuming that he was never sick in the first place. They think the whole thing was made up to save what would have been a huge fail on July 24th with very few tickets sold and poor PPV numbers.
Hearn said that he doesn’t understand how anything would change by rescheduling the Fury-Wilder III fight for October. If the ticket sales were poor for July, it makes sense that they’ll be just as bad for October.
They viewed the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight as garbage in October; it makes sense their views will hold constant for October 9th.
If the true reason for the fight being moved to October 9th is because of poor ticket sales and not Fury’s alleged COVID-19, the promoters are going to need to do something to get boxing fans interested in buying tickets and purchasing the fight on PPV.
Top Rank needs to take some of their stars and load up the undercard. It’s nice that they have many heavyweights on the card, but they may need to hit the nuclear button and get really daring to sell this thing.
For the last couple of months, Fury has been hounded by bad luck, starting with him losing the arbitration hearing for the Wilder rematch. He didn’t want to give Wilder his rematch from last year, despite having a contract.
Fury thought he could walk away from the contract, and boy was he wrong. After the fight with Wilder is scheduled, the rumors of low ticket sales pop up, and then next thing you know, Fury gets COVID-19.
Again, if the ticket sales are low for the October 9th fight, Fury’s promoters will need to develop a solution. He can’t recycle the COVID-19 excuse again, and it’s unclear whether it’ll make any difference if they postpone it a second time to push it back several months.