Wilder-Fury III: Bout postponed from July 18 amid coronavirus
The third fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder will not be held on July 18, as previously scheduled, and will instead be postponed to a later date, according to ESPN’s Dan Rafael.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum told ESPN that the parties would look to try and move the fight to the fall.
“You could not guarantee the fighters that the event would take place on that date. We couldn’t convince them or ourselves,” Arum told ESPN of a possible July 18 fight. “Where were they going to train for it? It just made no sense. You just have to take a step back. How are you going to sell tickets? It’s absolutely ridiculous to say the fight is on when the Brits can’t even get there.”
Less than a week after the pair’s second bout, the parties settled on a date for a third fight. In late February, Wilder’s trainer, Mark Breland, ended the one-sided fight in the seventh round after Wilder was knocked down twice. Wilder announced that he would not be letting Breland go despite being upset at his camp for throwing in the towel.
The loss was the first in Wilder’s career as a heavyweight boxer, who is now 42-1-1 with 41 knockouts. Fury improved his record to 30-0-1 with 21 knockouts.
The first meeting between Wilder and Fury took place on Dec. 1, 2018, which went down as a split draw.
The coronavirus pandemic has practically halted the entire sports world. As of result of its global impact, events such as the NCAA tournament have been canceled, leagues like the NBA, MLB and the NHL have been forced to suspend their seasons and, most recently, the IOC announced that it was postponing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until the summer of 2021 at the latest.
As of Tuesday night, there are more than 406,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide, causing more than 18,000 deaths. There are more than 52,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States.