By Richard Middleton-
Deontey Wilder has accused Tyson Fury’s team of being foolish and immature to look past him, as he vowed to destroy their dream fight against Anthony Joshua, aborted following the ruling by an arbitrator.
“He [Fury] was very immature. His team was immature to look past us,” Wilder said.
“It was a foolish, I wouldn’t even say a mistake, because they knew what they were doing. Foolish of them, stupid of them to think that they would just go past us.
“Something that was contractual, agreed, signed, and delivered. I am the one that’s going to mess up those plans, and I just want that same energy kept when I knock Fury out, the American told Sky Sports
In a veiled attack at Britain’s Anthony Joshua, the former American WBC king said: “As I see, they already making up excuses. They already got a mandatory planned ahead.
“No one really wants to fight someone like me, and I don’t blame them.”
Fury and Joshua had planned to fight for all the world titles this summer in Saudi Arabia, after both teams negligently ignored contractual arrangements Fury had to meet Wilder in a rematch in the event if a victory, as is customary when world champions lose a fight.
A controversial draw between Fury and Wilder in their first meeting led to an optional rematch which had an automatic clause for a third contest in the event of a defeat against Wilder, to afford the champion a shot at redemption. Obstructed by the pandemic, two scheduled dates for the planned rematch were missed, leading Fury and his team to succumb to the allure of the mega bucks that would accompany an all-British world championship unification fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
Momentum for the fight was gathering pace until a knockout blow in favour of Wilder forced all sides to honour the spirit of the contract between the former WBC heavy hitter and the gypsy king.
Fury was under the impression that a time lapse in staging the fight afforded him the right to deny Wilder his shot, blissfully oblivious of or ignoring the fact that the impossibility of performing the contractual obligations due to the pandemic did not mean the performance of the contract could not be delayed.
With the ruling that the fight must take place, neither Fury nor Joshua’s team took any steps to approach Wilder for a step aside payment proposal, just to secure the big fight the world had been waiting for. Hearns criticized Fury’s team for making zero efforts to secure the fight, clearing himself of any blame for making no moves himself.
In this case, neither Joshua nor Fury’s camp wanted to part with any of the multi-millions to be generated from a massive fight Wilder is determined to destroy. Fury says he is confident of repeating the dominant performance that saw him become a respected world champion, and he has every right to feel that way. What he has no right to feel is that there is no risk involved against the biggest heavyweight puncher in history in happily going for this third fight without considering a step aside payment, at least from the huge multi-millions the fight with Joshua in Saudi Arabia would have fetched him.
Fury cannot be denied his respect, but will have to beat Wilder again to maintain that respect. Wider is desperatly after wrecking the Joshua-Fury plan, and call for his own world unification big stage with Joshua, who is expected to get past Oleg Usyk in September.