By Keith Idec
The WBC twice has postponed the purse bid for the immediate rematch it ordered between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.
The second postponement was indefinite, according to WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, because representatives for Fury and Wilder were in the process of negotiating. As it turns out, Wilder adviser Al Haymon and co-manager Shelly Finkel weren’t the only ones with whom Frank Warren was negotiating last week.
The surprising announcement Monday morning that Fury had signed a co-promotional agreement with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. and ESPN complicated Wildery-Fury matters more than anyone involved envisioned – Sulaiman included.
Now that England’s Fury has negotiating leverage that he didn’t appear to possess as late as Sunday night, the WBC’s purse bid isn’t quite as important a component in the Wilder-Fury rematch equation as some might think. The WBC ordered a 60-40 purse split in favor of Wilder, its champion, thus even if Top Rank were to win a purse bid Wilder would be entitled to earn more money than Fury.
If negotiations among Haymon and Arum – or, more accurately, their lawyers – don’t result in a deal Fury finds acceptable, the lineal heavyweight champion simply can walk away from the rematch and fight another opponent on ESPN for a sizeable sum of money.
“[The purse bid] doesn’t factor into it at all,” Arum told BoxingScene.com. “The WBC wants the fight to happen. Good luck to them. But we don’t need them to tell us how the purses should be. That’ll come with reasonable negotiations.”
Arum also emphasized that an immediate rematch of their dubious draw December 1 in Los Angeles doesn’t necessarily need to take place May 18. A deal nearly was finalized late last week for Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) and Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) to fight again for Wilder’s WBC heavyweight championship May 18 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“Well, there’s no magic in May 18th,” Arum said. “That’s just one day of the year. When it comes time to pick a date for the fight, as long as the fight happens, what difference does it make if it’s in June? Or where it is. I mean, obviously, Las Vegas would be a good place for it and there are other good places for it. But, I mean, that’s to be decided when the time comes.”
Showtime would’ve distributed Wilder-Fury II via its pay-per-view division May 18.
The economic reality is that the rematch still must air on pay-per-view. It isn’t clear, however, if a joint event distributed by both ESPN and Showtime is a viable alternative.
That’ll be determined in the coming days, perhaps weeks.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
