Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has big ambitions for the heavyweight rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.
On Saturday night in Las Vegas, Tyson Fury trounced Tom Schwarz in two rounds, living up to his -3000 favorite odds with the bookies. He also made things interesting, wowing the crowd by dropping his hands and slipping Schwarz’s punches with ease. It was dangerous but made for one hell of a highlight — watch it here if you haven’t seen the finish already.
Next up? Fury will fight again on October 5th at Madison Square Garden in New York City against an opponent to be named. But it won’t be the rematch many hope for: Deontay Wilder and Fury fought to a controversial but exciting draw last December, but their respective promoters are keeping them apart at the moment.
Tyson Fury the English Ali pic.twitter.com/y6eVJ9AdMv
— Tony Fagnano (@BigToneMMA) June 16, 2019
Wilder is currently set to rematch Luiz Ortiz on September 28th. But don’t gnash your teeth and despair the state of boxing just yet. If nothing goes wrong (and things can go very wrong), Fury’s promoter Bob Arum says Wilder-Fury 2 will go down in early 2020.
”If both guys get through their next fights, the fight will be first quarter of next year,” Arum said at the post-fight press conference. “And I really believe – and I’m not blowing smoke – it’s going to be on pay-per-view, and I can’t see why that fight won’t equal or surpass the numbers that were done on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. They’re two little guys, it was built up for a lot of years. But they’re not heavyweights. And they’re not heavyweights of this category and now this notoriety.”
That’s some heavyweight aspirations considering the first Wilder-Fury fight only sold an estimated 400,000 pay-per-views. But Arum feels confident Fury’s recent stretch of entertaining fights and sterling credentials are going to make all the difference.
”The reason the first Fury-Wilder fight didn’t do real numbers is because other than some hardcore boxing fans, the public didn’t know about this guy,” he said, pointing to Fury. “They really didn’t know him. Now they know him, and after the fight in October they’ll know him even more. Wilder will hopefully have a great fight with Ortiz and beat Ortiz and the rematch, I think, is capable of doing over four million pay-per-view homes.”
”Can I get a hell yeah!” Fury yelled.
He should be happy. Fury already made an estimated $10 million after PPV proceeds off the first Deontay Wilder fight, and pocketed a guaranteed $12.5 against Schwarz. That’ll be pocket change compared to the purse generated by a four million buy pay-per-view.
Fury was more than happy to build the eventual showdown up.
”Deontay Wilder is coming,” Fury said. “This fight’s going to happen. There was three horses in the heavyweight division. And now there’s two. And I already beat him once, and I’ll beat him again and again and again. And he ain’t gonna fight a 50% Tyson Fury any more. He’s going to get a fully match fit, back active, back sharp Tyson Fury.”
”I think it’s the biggest fight in world boxing, bar none,” he said when asked how big the rematch would be. “Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury, the rematch is the biggest fight we’re gonna see in the next years, few years anyway. I don’t see anyone else coming up that can be as big. You’ve got two undefeated heavyweights, lineal champion, WBC champion, fighting in their prime. It doesn’t get any bigger than this.”
It’s certainly going to be a big fight. The biggest? That’s another thing entirely. But if both men score another impressive needle moving knockout in the fall (did you see Deontay Wilder’s latest finish???), who knows how big this thing could get? That is, if someone doesn’t lose and mess it all up.