The contracted trilogy fight between WBC heavyweight king Tyson Fury and former title holder Deontay Wilder is finally off the agenda after a series of frustrating delays.
Fury says his patience has expired after Wilder’s team tried to push the fight into 2021, causing further disruption to the division by delaying a unification with WBA Super, WBO and IBF champion Anthony Joshua.
Now ‘enough is enough’ and Fury will move on to a December 5 fight in the UK against an opponent to be announced before hopefully facing Joshua in the first of a two-fight series in 2021. Joshua must first defeat IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev on December 12. Wilder’s team have yet to comment with the American’s manager Shelly Finkel still insisting over the weekend that the fight remains on.
But speaking to Mike Coppinger of The Athletic, Fury said: “I was looking forward to smashing Wilder again. A quick and easy fight. But Wilder and his team were messing around with the date. They don’t really want to fight the lineal heavyweight champion. They know how it ends. The world knows how it will end, with Wilder on his ass again.
“Then they tried to change the date again into next year. I’ve been training. I’m ready. When they tried moving off December 19 and pushing to next year, enough was enough. I’ve moved on.
“I am the best fighter in the world. The lineal heavyweight champion. The two-time Ring magazine heavyweight champion. The WBC heavyweight champion,” added Fury. “And before the end of 2021, I will be the only man on this earth with a heavyweight championship belt.”
Fury trounced Wilder in seven rounds in February following their controversial draw in December 2018 where most observers believed the ‘Gypsy King’ merited the decision. Fury and Joshua agreed to a two-fight series in principle earlier this year.