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

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.