By Gabriel Princewill-
Anthony Joshua and Deontey Wilder are both wrong to conclude that Tyson Fury was avoiding them.
Both Joshua and Wilder, explosive behemoths in the sports premiere division, have expressed views that unbeaten WBC champion Tyson Fury was avoiding them.
In Joshua’s case, Tyson Fury’s announcement to his fans on social media that the fight with the Londoner was on, despite the ongoing arbitration over his disputed contract with Wilder, has led the division’s multi belt champion to say he was deliberately being avoided. A U.S judge ruled in favour of Wilder, the day after the two brits signed their lucrative Saudi Arabia deal.
Eddie Hearn told DAZN that AJ felt Fury never wanted the fight. Hearn said: “I think it was pretty intentional. AJ felt that Fury never wanted to fight.
“I don’t particularly trust people on that side. Some people couldn’t let that fight happen. They wanted to keep some kind of control.
“When they say, they might want (the fight] in December, who knows?”
Eddie Hearn expresses Joshua’s Doubt Fury Wanted Fight Image: Sky sports.com
Brovado
The expressed views from both Joshua and Wilder are nothing short of brovado on the part of both heavyweight big hitters. It would be not be logical to imagine that Fury could have been avoiding both Joshua and Wilder, otherwise it would mean he didn’t want to fight either of the fighters.
This rational deduction intuitively exposes the irrationality of the idea, more so when we remember that the gypsy king pummeled Wilder in their second fight last year, and would have been an overwhelming favourite to dethrone Anthony Joshua if they had met as planned in August.
Fury stops Wilder in February 2020 Image:Sky Sports.com
What would have actually transpired in the ring had the fight between Joshua and Wilder materialised is unknown, but the idea Fury is running scared of either of the two heavyweights, is at best untrue, at worst, spurious.
The outspoken fighter is the most supremely confident of the three fighters inside and outside the ring, though it would be folly for him to think victory against either Wilder or Joshua is a given.
Allegations Of Cowardice
Pedaling allegations of cowardice against Tyson Fury is futile. The erroneous suggest fans are being deliberately fooled by an elite competitor in the sport.
Especially when such allegations lack logical grounds. Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury’s team both shared the responsibility of ensuring Wilder’s contract wasn’t violated, and both parties were fully aware of the arbitration.
It was therefore incumbent upon both parties to establish the grounds on which Wilder believed his contract was still valid, after the initial time period on the contract lapsed in December 2020.
Instead, both parties were equally engrossed in making the big money fight, demonstrating a flagrant oversight with regards the arbitration, and the stated grounds for Wilder’s legal protest.
Tyson Fury is no legal analyst to understand the nuances of contract law. All he understands are the fundamental agreements with dates; mitigating circumstances embodied in a contract is not something the gypsy king can be expected to grasp, except where explicitly explained to him.
Genuine Error
Fury was in error to believe he could move on from Wilder, but had no incentive to face the American for the third time, after seeing two scheduled fights over a 9 month period fall by the way side.
It was normal for him to prefer to meet Anthony Joshua for a money spinning unification fight, instead of meeting a man he believed he had beaten twice(well, Fury had beaten Wilder once, because their first meeting was a draw).
Nobody told Fury about the Force Majeure provision in every contract, which makes provision for extraneous influences outside the control of the participating parties-like a pandemic. He could not have been expected to be any more conversant with those intricacies than Anthony Joshua.
Eddie Hearn worked tirelessly to put the contract together, but the promoter really should not be encouraging those kind of baseless aspersions about a fighter.
Deontey Wilder’s attribution of cowardice to Tyson Fury is understandable because of how aggrieved he feels about the struggle he had to endure to secure the fight, but the reality is that Tyson Fury is scared of nobody. He has always talked a lot of smack, but so far, is the only one out of the heavyweight trio who has always backed his talk in the ring.
Wilder is the one who really comes out laughing out of all of this. He has successfully obstructed what was to be a massive fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, and could potentially become a world title king again if his dangerous right hand turns Fury’s lights out on July 24. He would see this as his final chance to return to heavyweight glory against a man who outclassed him twice.
Wilder and Joshua must now focus on their respective opponents, but accusing Fury for avoiding fights with these guys is wrong.
The truth is that all parties failed to identify the true state of the contract that was in dispute, because Fury and Joshua’s team were too focused on the monetary and opportunistic gains of the unification fight.
Justice brought them right back to reality, and still demands that they treat each other fairly as they prepare for their next fights, for the sake of the sport and their respective integrities.