The July 23 fight between British heavyweight champion Dereck Chisora and unbeaten challenger Tyson Fury has found an American television outlet, as Integrated Sports PPV has picked up the fight for a live, 3 p.m. EDT airing. The show will cost $24.95.
This is a surprising move as neither has any name value at all in the States, but it's not a tough fight to market to the right demographic, either. There are many fight fans out there who will gravitate toward just about any heavyweight fight instead of anything else, and both Chisora (14-0, 9 KO) and Fury (14-0, 10 KO) are colorful characters who have so far been able to convince the public that this will be a mean-spirited fight between guys who don't like each other, and that's always easy to sell.
Chisora had been set to fight Wladimir Klitschko twice, but when both fights fell apart, and Klitschko signed to fight David Haye in a July 2 mega-event in Germany, Chisora's status as British heavyweight champ was again priority No. 1, and the BBBofC set up a bid for mandatory challenger Fury, the 6'9", 23-year-old brawler who has bene a pro just about two and a half years at this point. Both fights usually make for a bit more action than most of the big boys do, so it could -- could -- be an entertaining fight.
Undercard bouts have not been named as of yet. My unlikely-to-happen hope is that the undercard will mostly be made up of Frank Warren fighters, even though the purse bid was won by Hennessy Sports.