By Barry Holbrook: The date for the trilogy fight between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury will be decided only after Top Rank promoter Bob Arum sits down with Deontay’s management at PBC to to determine the best date and location. Arum states that July 18 is the final date for the Fury-Wilder 3 fight to take place.
It would work to Wilder’s benefit to have it take place as late as possible because he’s coming off of a bad loss to Fury on February 22. Wilder needs to mentally and physically recover from his defeat. That’s the kind of defeat that a fighter doesn’t forget for a long time, and it’s a wrong-headed move for Wilder to be rushing straight into a third fight with Fury.
The 273-lb Fury used his big 42lb weight advantage to maul, beat up and stop the 231-lb Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) in the 7th round. Fury’s size and overall talent advantage was too for the 6’7″ Wilder to overcome.
What Wilder needs is a confidence booster, and a couple of tune-up fights, but he’s elected to trigger the rematch clause to force the third fight. Fury wouldn’t wait around for Wilder to get the tune-up fights out of the way, and a new contract between them wouldn’t likely be as favorable as the rematch.
With Fury saying that he’s retiring after 2 more fights, it forced Wilder’s hand to exercise the rematch clause. It’s now or never for him.
Fury-Wilder 3 date to be determined
“We’ll be discussing that with the PBC people that promote Wilder. The contract provides a date of July 18th as the final date of the fight, but of course, we’ll be discussing all options in the next day or two,” said Fury’s promoter Bob Arum to ESPN. “July 18th is the last date, and then there are injury provisions and that sort of thing.
“So again, until we speak to the other side in which we had a tremendous relationship in this last fight, I can’t definitively give you the date for the third [Fury vs. Wilder] fight,” said Arum.
Arum is happy that things have worked out for him in signing Fury. After just three fights with Top Rank, Fury is the WBC heavyweight champion, and he’ll be enjoying a 60-40 split for the third fight with Wilder. If Fury wins that fight and if Anthony defeats Kubrat Pulev, then those two will be fighting in December possibly.
Joshua will lose to Pulev on June 20 – predicts Arum
“Anthony Joshua is getting knocked out on June 20th at Tottenham Stadium in London by my guy Kubrat Pulev,” said Arum. “Take it to the bank. There won’t be an Anthony Joshua after June 20. I would have no problems working with him [Eddie Hearn] on a big unification show, but I’m telling you, it ain’t going to happen.
Pulev is going to knock out Joshua. That’s always a possibility certainly,” said Arum when asked if he would consider taking the Wilder vs. Fury 3 fight outside of Las Vegas.
Arum doesn’t even want to entertain the idea of his fighter Pulev (28-1, 14 KOs) losing to Joshua. Pulev is a blue-collar type of heavyweight contender, and he lacks the skills that you would see with an elite level heavyweight like Joshua. He doesn’t have the power of Wilder, who is able to make for his lack of skills by having the biggest punch in the division.
Pulev likely wouldn’t be fighting for a world title at all if the International Boxing Federation didn’t make it easy by sanctioning an eliminator between him a Hughie Fury.
Fury vs. Joshua could take place in the UK or Mideast
“If Joshua survives the Pulev fight, a Fury-Joshua fight would pretty much definitely take place outside of Las Vegas, whether in the UK or the Mideast. Fury really loves Vegas. Las Vegas is Tyson Fury’s kind of town, just as it was Elvis Presley’s town. So it’s going to be tough to get Tyson away from Las Vegas, but I would think that a Fury-Joshua fight will take place in England or the Mideast,” said Arum.
It’s likely that the Joshua vs. Fury fight will place in the Middle East rather than the UK. While Joshua, 29, might be on board with having the fight staged in the UK, Fury may resist that idea if it means that it brings in far less money. His situation is different than Joshua’s. Fury is about to retire, and his fight against Joshua will be his last before hanging up his gloves.
Joshua is someone that could continue fighting successfully for another 10 years, and he’s going to have a lot of opportunities to massive money. For that reason, he would be more willing to lose out on a lot of money from a Middleast country in order to make his British boxing fans happy by staging the fight in the UK.
Arum not sure if Spence will fight Crawford
“I would venture to say that absent the accident that happened with Spence, we would now be talking about a Crawford-Spence fight with a date and a venue firmly in place, but I saw that Spence was sitting behind me.
“And I don’t know if he’s back in the kind of condition that he would have to be for him to fight Crawford. I really don’t know. Again, I’m not pushing it because I don’t want him to go into a fight not prepared against an opponent like Terence Crawford.
“Hopefully, we’ll get this coronavirus thing under control so we can do the event in a big arena like Madison Square Garden, but we’re sorting through everything and we hope to have an announcement shortly about that fight,” said Arum.
IBF/WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (26-0, 21 KOs) doesn’t look like he plans on returning to action soon. Arum would wasting his time to try and put together a fight between Terence Crawford and Spence in 2020.
Maybe in 2021 if Spence is able to resume his career, but right now it’s unknown when or if he’ll fight again. Additionally, Spence made a lot of money in his last two fights against Shawn Porter and Mikey Garcia on Fox Sports pay-per-view. Spence is set for life now, so he might not have the same hunger to resume his career as a person that hasn’t made a lot of money in the sport.
Shakur Stevenson vs. Miguel Marriaga this Saturday
“That’s Saturday night, we’re good with that one. Marriaga and Shakur Stevenson,” said Arum when asked about the Shakur Stevenson vs. Miguel Marriaga fight scheduled for this Saturday night on March 14. “And then a few days later at the same Arena at Madison Square Garden, Mick Conlan, the Irish star, will be performing in I think his fourth straight St. Patrick’s Day event, and we have Paddy Donovan.
He’s a big superstar from Limerick, and he’ll be fighting. He’s a tremendous prospect, a middleweight. The card is loaded with Irish kids to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. That’s also at the Garden on Tuesday, the 17th. That’s really great all these Irish kids root and pull for each other. There is Carl Frampton, Mick Conlan or Paddy Donovan, and Conor MacGregor is part of that group,” said Arum.
WBO featherweight champion Shakur Stevenson (13-0, 7 KOs) will be defending his title this Saturday night against Miguel Marriaga (29-3, 25 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York. It’ll be an interesting fight. Boxing fans want to see Stevenson fight Gary Russell Jr., Leo Santa Cruz or Josh Warrington. Marriaga has already had his chances in facing Vasiliy Lomah