Top Rank sends Wilder offer for Fury rematch

Top Rank signed a co-promotional deal with Tyson Fury this week, which put what seemed like an inevitable rematch with Deontay Wilder up in the air for the time being, as Fury is now with Top Rank and ESPN in the United States, while Wilder has for years been with Al Haymon’s PBC and Showtime, which hosted the Dec. 2018 Wilder-Fury bout on pay-per-view.

But Bob Arum of Top Rank promised they still wanted to do the Wilder-Fury rematch, and said his company would send an offer Wilder’s way. And now they have, with Wilder’s team confirming they’ve received an offer.

Wilder co-manager Shelly Finkel isn’t going into any specifics for the time being, refusing to comment on the quality of the offer or whether or not Wilder is officially “with” Showtime:

“They made an offer. I wrote back that we received it. We will review it and we will respond. If we are amenable to the offer, we will be able to get something done. If the terms are amenable to us, something will happen. If not, it won’t. ... But we want the rematch, so that is not the issue.”

The WBC, who have pretty much bent over backwards allowing negotiations for this fight to happen freely, are currently giving Wilder and Fury until Wednesday night to let them know the status of the rematch, which the organization has officially ordered.

Right now, it seems almost impossible to say if this fight will happen or not, but for once, that really means that there’s as good a chance it does as there is that it doesn’t. Haymon and Top Rank have worked together before for fights, and this is the biggest fight available for either of these guys right now. The other options they might have — for example, Wilder fighting Dominic Breazeale or Dillian Whyte (which also wouldn’t be simple to make), Fury fighting someone like Kubrat Pulev or Oscar Rivas — just aren’t even in the same ballpark, and everyone would be leaving a lot of money on the table.

So we’ll see. The good news is that Finkel didn’t spit on the offer right away.