WBC WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT champion Deontay Wilder and former World heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will not meet in an immediate rematch of their enthralling December draw, the WBC has confirmed.
Fury [27-0-1, 19KOs] recently signed a co-promotional deal with Bob Arum’s Top Rank and, by association, ESPN, casting doubt over a potential sequel due to the fact that Wilder [40-0-1, 39KOs] has traditionally fought on rival US network Showtime.
This evening, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman confirmed that despite the fact that his organisation had waved Wilder’s mandatory defence against Dominic Breazeale to pave the way for a re-run with the big Brit, a fight between the unbeaten pair is “officially not happening next”.
Sulaiman added that the WBC has “received communications as [is] our process and while WBC champion Wilder confirmed his willingness to fight the rematch, Fury will take on another fight with expectations to do rematch at a later date.”
.@BronzeBomber vs @Tyson_Fury is officially not happening next. The @WBCBoxing has received communications as our process and while WBC Champion Wilder confirmed its willingness to fight the rematch, Fury will take on another fight with expectations to do rematch at a later date pic.twitter.com/ZFz5Jtft51
— Mauricio Sulaiman (@wbcmoro) February 26, 2019
It’s now expected that Wilder will defend his WBC World heavyweight title against Breazeale, the popular American whose sole career defeat was suffered at the hands of Anthony Joshua in June of 2016.
As of now, Fury’s plans — or perhaps more pertinently, Top Rank’s plans for Fury — remain up in the air.
It’s not unlikely that the 30-year-old former champion will seek to increase his profile in the States, and particularly on ESPN, before taking a consequentially higher-profile and more lucrative rematch with Wilder further down the line.
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