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Top Rank’s CEO Bob Arum, who co-promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, is confident that nothing will derail the trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder.
Fury, with or without the world title, is contractually bound to fight Wilder next.
In February, he stopped Wilder in seven rounds to capture the WBC title. Wilder would then exercise his contractual option to an immediate rematch.
Fury vs. Wilder is currently targeted for the date of December 19 – but there are heavy industry rumors stating that it could move to a date in the first quarter of 2021.
The mandatory challenger to the WBC title is Dillian Whyte, who returns on August 22 against Alexander Povetkin.
There is an order by the WBC, which grants Whyte his mandatory shot by February of 2021.
And last week, Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn issued a warning – stating that Fury-Wilder must happen in 2020 or he will push for Whyte to get his mandatory shot.
But Arum is not the least bit worried – and indicates that Hearn tells him something totally different when they speak in private.
“The WBC approved the trilogy contract and that provides for postponements. And certainly, if you can’t do it with spectators, a reasonable postponement would be okay. It’s a different kind of fight. The Fury vs Wilder fight in the United States is a major, major fight. Dillian Whyte, nobody ever heard of him in the United States,” Arum told Talk Sport.
“Eddie Hearn tells you guys something different from what he tells me. But he has to take the position that advocates for Dillian Whyte. I’m absolutely clear that the Wilder fight will push ahead and then we’ll see. Then, if he wants to push Dillian Whyte to fight the winner of that fight and to deprive Joshua of the tremendous revenue that would come from a Fury vs Joshua fight, that’s on Eddie.
According to Arum, he’s also been given assurances from WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman, that a postponement of Fury-Wilder will not be an issue.
Should Fury win, Arum says the goal would be to fight IBF, WBA, IBO, WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua – not Whyte.
“I can’t talk for the WBC, I know based on my conversations with Mauricio that if the fight had to be postponed to the beginning of February, that fight would go on. What then he would determine in terms of Whyte, he might say, ‘No, Fury if he beats Wilder will have to fight Whyte.’ And therefore that would affect the Joshua fight, but again, one step at a time.
“All I know is that we are not ingrates. Tyson Fury, Top Rank, we were given the opportunity by Wilder… How do you turn your back on Wilder? That would be absolutely improper. gain, our goal is to do Fury and Wilder, and then if Fury wins, to go right to a Joshua fight plus a rematch. That’s where we stand. It would be an absolute travesty. All these mandatories, schmandatories. People are looking for what the public wants.
“If Joshua is successful against Pulev and Fury is successful against Wilder, then everybody on both sides of the pond will look at Fury and Joshua as the fight that they wanna see. And they don’t care about a mandatories, whether it’s Usyk on the WBO side or Whyte on the WBC side. People don’t care, they would be outraged.”