Comments Thread For: Hearn: Fury Should Lose Title Status if Wilder Trilogy is Delayed Again

[Rodtang]

Yes, Fury was obliged to fulfil the contract, and he was ready and willing to do it. But he wasn't obliged to go to his team and tell them to make the fight. Wilder was the one who lost, Wilder was the one who activated the rematch clause, and it was his team's job to make sure it happened. Fury was in camp with Sugar Hill training for the trilogy. Like I said, he was ready and willing to fulfil his obligation. But where was Wilder and what he was he doing?

I'm going to post a link to the first interview Wilder gave after losing his title. It happened in mid November. In the interview, Wilder tells Brian Custer that, after the first fight date was called off because of the covid crisis, he went into hospital for surgery on a shoulder injury and hadn't been able to start training again till October. He also says something very confusing and contradictory - that because Fury had refused to fight him, he had decided to "move on from Fury" and was planning to fight someone else in January, possibly Robert Helenius.

Now how could Fury refuse to fight a guy who was sidelined with an injury, and who wasn't responding to emails, messages posted on social media, etc? For 8 months, after losing to Fury, it was like Wilder had disappeared from the face of the earth!

And if Wilder had been out with an injury till October, and was planning to fight another PBC guy in January, when exactly was Fury supposed to have fought him?

My theory is that both camps had agreed, behind the scenes, to interim fights before re-matching each other again - which would have made sense for a lot of reasons - but when the option to unify with AJ came up for Fury, Wilder and his team panicked and decided to forget about interim fights and enforce the rematch immediately, because if Fury had lost to AJ, Wilder might never get a chance to fight for a world title again.

Deontay Wilder/Brian Custer interview:

Like I said I totally get that the wilder side were not pulling their finger out, but it takes 2 to tango. And its not about them responding to each other in social media. That's what's wrong with this lot today as too much is said on social media and not enough said away from it to actually make fights. It's down to the fighters handlers to get this done, and they were in agreement that early 21 was preferable to try to get bums on seats. To be fair to Wilder he mentioned Helenius after Fury walked away from the situation. But for me Fury should never have walked away from it. He should have been patient. Or at least chinned TR as clearly his thoughts and Top Ranks were on a different wavelength. I just want this fight to go ahead so we can draw a line under it and move on. We'll obviously not completely agree here, but I respect your opinions. Stay safe.