LAS VEGAS — The framework is in place for Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder to pick up where they left off after their exhilarating split draw last December as the two fighters appear to be locked in to a 2020 rematch. After Wilder completed his side of the initial work by obliterating Dominic Breazeale in the first round on May 18, Fury handled his end of the bargain by stopping Tom Schwarz in the second round of their showdown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
One could argue that a rematch between the two is the biggest fight that can be made in boxing, facing stiff competition by a third Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin fight and a potential showdown between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford, but Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum believes it can go above and beyond what anyone has seen in boxing.
The 87-year-old legendary promoter recently signed Fury to a promotional deal that began on Saturday when "The Gypsy King" made his Las Vegas debut in entertaining fashion as he thrilled with his homage to Apollo Creed during his entrance to James Brown's "Living In America" and sent fans home happy with a scintillating knockout. You can color Arum impressed.
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“That was amazing," Arum said. "Tyson Fury is a force of nature. This was one of the great shows I’ve ever seen and not just because of the boxing. He’s an entertainer. He is truly unique. Now that he's in shape, he can knock out every heavyweight in the world. Deontay Wilder is not going five rounds with him. We will have another fight, then we will fight Wilder."
Fury looks to return to the ring on either Sept. 21 or Oct. 5, which fits the timeline as Wilder has an obligation to face Luis Ortz this fall. Should both heavyweights take care of business, they will meet in early 2020 at a location to be decided. And when they do meet, records could be broken.
During the post-fight press conference, Arum went so far as to say that Wilder-Fury 2 could outperform Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s record-breaking 2015 showdown with Manny Pacquiao. The fight generated a 4.6 million pay per view buys and raked in over $400 million in revenue.
Arum believes there's "no reason" why Wilder-Fury 2 shouldn't smash those records.
"I really believe — I’m not blowing smoke — I can’t see why that fight won’t equal or surpass numbers done on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight," he said. "That was built up for a lot of years and still they’re not heavyweights."
Arum believes that there's nothing that draws like a major heavyweight fight, so he's not terribly off base in that sense. However, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao was positioned as a showdown between two of the greatest fighters to have ever competed in the history of the sweet science. They captured the imaginations of both casual and hardcore fan.
A Wilder-Fury rematch would likely fare well for PPV buyrates, but it's difficult to believe that these two could generate enough momentum to eclipse 4 million buys. That didn't stop Arum, though.
"Why wouldn’t it be? People always look for the big, big heavyweight fights," Arum said. "[Muhammad] Ali-[Joe] Frazier did more business than any other fight before it. I can’t see why that wouldn’t happen (with this fight). And particularly when it matches somebody from the UK, who is not coming over as an opponent but is equal with an American, it can do tremendous business on pay-per-view."
Arum won't back down from his stance. But he's going to have to do a heck of a job as a promoter in order to come remotely close to that astonishing figure.
