One of the main bouts of the year in professional boxing, in which Briton Tyson Fury and American Deontay Wilder will fight for the world heavyweight title according to the World Boxing Council (WBC), will take place on October 9 at the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas. It was planned that the match, the date of which had been agreed upon for more than a year, would take place in July, but it was decided to postpone it until the fall for two reasons. The first is due to the fact that the test of the holder of the Fury championship belt for coronavirus gave a positive result, and the second – of a financial nature – with the desire of the organizers of the fight to increase income from the sale of paid broadcasts and tickets.
The fact that the fight of the famous heavyweights – Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder – for the WBC championship belt will take place on October 9, reported в Twitter Top Rank Boxing promotion company. It was planned that the British and the American would meet at the end of this month – July 24, however, two weeks before the fight, COVID-19 was first detected in one of the members of the Tyson Fury camp, then in himself.
This fight will undoubtedly become one of the most high-profile events in boxing due to its interesting background.
Prior to that, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder, two hugely popular fighters, had met twice. Their first fight in December 2018 ended in a draw. In the second – in February of last year – an early victory in the seventh round was won by Tyson Fury, who had retained a colossal advantage throughout the entire fight. Wilder, who then lost the championship belt to the British, immediately took advantage of the right to revenge, recorded in the contract. But the heavyweights still could not find a date for him: twice the fight had to be postponed due to coronavirus restrictions, then due to the fact that the date of the fight coincided with the date of the matches of the National Football League (NFL).
Tyson Fury has already agreed to organize another fight – with compatriot Anthony Joshua for the title of absolute champion. The British decided on the date and place, but Deontay Wilder was not happy with this. He turned directly to the American arbitration, which ordered Fury to pay compensation to the latter in case of cancellation of the meeting with Wilder. The WBC champion immediately ruled out this possibility and nevertheless agreed to fight the American this summer.
On July 5, Tyson Fury was diagnosed with COVID-19. Despite the fact that the very next day his test showed a negative result, the doctors recommended that he go home.
A number of sources, including the American television channel ESPN, believe that the postponement of the battle took place for other reasons. Income from the sale of paid broadcasts was extremely modest.
“There was no hype, because of which the numbers had to be very low,” – quoted the promoter Eddie Hearn Mirror. ESPN says that promoters Top Rank and PBC will spend the next two months looking to “maximize paid-stream revenue.” Fury’s February duel with Wilder, for example, generated around 800,000-850,000 broadcast purchases.
In addition, ticket sales are also low. According to Eddie Hearn, in total, about 25-30% of seats have been sold so far. It is noteworthy that the last fight between the American and the British, on the contrary, was among the most attended and broke the record of the state of Nevada among the heavyweight fights in ticket sales: it amounted to $ 16.9 million.
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