Tyson Fury has a contractually obligated third fight with Deontay Wilder, but with coronavirus restrictions clearly not about to let up enough to allow for live fans in December, and no guarantee that they’d be allowed in February of next year, either, co-promoter Frank Warren says that Fury is looking to fight this year no matter what.
That means he could take an interim, non-title fight, Warren tells ESPN, or he could defend against someone else, likely not taking a big risk.
“The first priority is to get Tyson in with Deontay Wilder, and the second priority is to get Tyson to fight this year. I’ve got no conflict with Bob Arum, but Tyson is not going to wait until February to fight, it’s not what he wants. ... It might be a 10-rounder, I don’t know at the moment. It’s no one’s fault that this is the situation we are in but it can’t go on forever and you have to make some commercial decision and for Tyson’s wellbeing.”
As for maybe doing a non-title fight, that seems a step too far into pointlessness to me, but that’s just me. Listen, there are always non-risks to take in a sanctioning body’s top 15. I mean, to be fair, the WBC’s top 15 isn’t horrible, there are no incompetents in there like happens a lot of the time, but Charles Martin and Agit Kabayel are in there. These aren’t guys who have any significant chance of troubling Fury, more likely than not.
That said, no matter what Fury does, it’d be a welcome bit of star power on the schedule right now. He could do an eight-round exhibition with WWE Superstar The Big Show at this point and it’d be a bump to boxing’s buzz.