Posted on 07/08/2021
By: Sean Crose
ESPN is reporting that the upcoming Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua WBC heavyweight title match, which is set to go down just a few weeks from now, may well be postponed. It’s being cited that a Covid outbreak in the Fury camp is the reason for the possible scheduling change. The Athletics’ Lance Pugmire quotes Fury co-promoter Bob Arum as saying he hasn’t been told if Fury himself has the virus. “We continue to monitor the health status of Tyson and his team and the status of the event has not changed to date,” Pugmire quotes Arum as saying.
This is yet another strange turn in what has been a very strange series of events now going all the way back to 2018. That’s when Fury was dropped by a thunderous Wilder right hand in the final round of their first bout. Fury, who had clearly been winning the fight up to that point, looked to be down and out. Yet the man got up and fought on, leading the match to be declared a draw by the judges. Just over a year later, in the rematch, Fury – now under the tutelage of Sugar Hill Steward – fought in a surprisingly aggressive style and stopped his man in the seventh.
And now this.
Again, the fight has yet to be officially postponed. If it is, however, then September is being seen as the month when the bout will occur. There’s a obviously lot of attention on this match, much of it having to do with the bad blood involved (at least on the part of Wilder). As things stand, there are currently four major contenders for the title of heavyweight king: Fury, Wilder, Joshua, and (more recently) Oleksandr Usyk, who looks to be fighting Wilder in September now that Fury is out as an immediate opponent.