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Deontay Wilder: Tyson Fury rematch signed, will come after Luis Ortiz rematch

Wilder says the contracts have been signed.

Deontay Wilder v Tyson Fury Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Deontay Wilder says that the contracts have been signed, and that after his September rematch with Luis Ortiz, he will have another rematch against Tyson Fury.

Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KO) and Fury (27-0-1, 19 KO) fought to a controversial draw last December, in a fight where Fury went down twice but seemingly won the public vote by a pretty large margin.

A rematch between the two was ordered earlier this year by the WBC, whose heavyweight title Wilder holds, but Fury instead opted to sign with Top Rank and schedule a June 15 fight with Tom Schwarz.

Top Rank’s Bob Arum has said repeatedly that he’s open to doing a Wilder-Fury rematch in the future, and that he feels that with the proper marination and the American public getting to know both men more, the fight can do 2-3 million buys on pay-per-view, which is pretty classic promoter exaggeration. Wilder-Fury did 325,000 on pay-per-view in December, and in the entire history of boxing, a total of four fights (De La Hoya-Mayweather, Mayweather-Canelo, Mayweather-Pacquiao, and Mayweather-McGregor) have ever passed the two million-buy mark.

But can it be bigger? Sure. Can it do a million? Maybe. The heavyweights are drawing a lot of interest, and Wilder-Fury II is probably the biggest fight that has any reasonable shot of actually happening any time soon — and if Wilder is telling the truth that both sides have signed, will actually happen.

The announcements of these rematches are by no means coincidentally happening during Joshua-Ruiz fight week. It’s no question that Wilder is stealing a good chunk of the spotlight for himself by doing this. But that’s not something he or his team are creating or anything, a lot of fights in recent years have been announced when there is actually attention on something in the sport.

If it’s all really a done deal, expect Wilder-Fury II in the first part of 2020, assuming Wilder gets past Ortiz in September.

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