New Brizel Editorial: The Fury US 80 Million Dollars of Madness Heavyweight Question
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
On Saturday, October 9, 2021, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the 80 million dollar question of penalty madness will be answered. Lineal World Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has the boxing public intrigued, in the most significant heavyweight trilogy bout since Riddick Bowe versus Evander Holyfield III and Floyd Patterson versus Ingemar Johansson III. Fury will not have to pay 80 million dollars to Wilder if the trilogy bout occurs.
[Reader’s note: the late Jack Johnson, “The Galveston Giant”, fought Joe Jeanette seven times and an eighth time in a U.S. War Bonds exhibition, but only the 15 round decision Johnson won over Jeanette in March 1906, at in Baltimore, Maryland, would be categorized as a title bout (the colored title, and Johnson later won the full heavyweight title by 14 rounds decision over Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia in December 1908, the 14 rounds decision per previous agreement if and after the bout was halted by the police).
Tyson Fury has 80 million reasons for granting a contractual trilogy match with Deontay Wilder for the World Boxing Council World Heavyweight championship, reinforced by court arbitration. The arbitration ruling interfered with the Fury’s heavyweight title unification match with WBA WBO IBF and IBO World Heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, who will now defend his world heavyweight titles against unbeaten former world cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. Fury would have to pay Wilder 80 million dollars if his unification bout with Joshua went through. The Coronavirus pandemic delayed professional boxing, and when Fury got it, it delayed the Wilder trilogy bout in Las Vegas as well. Fury has “us”, the boxing public, on the hook.
If Fury should lose, it could force the fourth Fury versus Wilder match in 2022, or set up Wilder versus the winner of Joshua versus Usyk. Whatever the case, the politics of the heavyweight division, delayed by court battles and the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic, have added confusion to the attempt to achieve clarity in the division. It is not at all like a Mike Tyson solution. A Mike Tyson style knockout here, there, and everywhere will not settle it. Former champion Andy Ruiz, contenders Dillian Whyte versus Otto Wallin, Michael Hunter, Filip Hrgovic, Efe Ajagba versus Frank Sanchez, Robert Helenius versus Adam Kownacki II, Kubrat Pulev, Joe Joyce, Luis Ortiz, Tony Yoka and Trevor Bryan (the WBA regular titleholder) are among the main event fighters waiting in the wings for a heavyweight title opportunity, as the division continues to get mired in the bog of boxing politics and who gets a shot. It remains 80 million dollars of arbitration madness.
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