Bob Arum wants to do Wilder-Fury rematch

Tyson Fury recently signed a co-promotional deal with Top Rank, and the biggest question immediately was clear: what does this mean for a rematch with Deontay Wilder, a PBC/Al Haymon fighter?

It’s true that Top Rank and Haymon rarely do business together, but certainly not unheard of or anything like that. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, for his part, is saying that it’s the fight that he wants to do:

“Deontay Wilder himself said, that as far as networks are concerned, he’s a free agent. Today, we are sending out an offer to Deontay Wilder, which will also go to his manager, Shelly Finkel, and his adviser, Al Haymon, making this offer — which is a tremendous one — to do the fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.”

The WBC has ordered Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KO) to make another defense against Fury (27-0-1, 19 KO) following their disputed Dec. 1 draw, a fight where Fury was on the canvas twice but nonetheless garnered most of the media support on unofficial scorecards.

Arum wants to do the fight through ESPN, where Top Rank has their huge TV deal. It is at least probable that Haymon would want to go through Showtime’s pay-per-view, just like the first bout.

It’s still not clear whether this new deal between Fury and Top Rank is going to prevent this fight from happening, but Arum is at least publicly saying what people want to hear. And if the money is good enough to go through ESPN, it’s not impossible that Haymon and Co. will let Wilder cross the street and do the fight there. That’s the optimistic view, and since there’s nothing the rest of us can do about any of it, we’ll cross our fingers and go with that for the time being.