Arum seduced by charismatic Fury’s display against Wilder
Tyson Fury’s US promoter became determined to recruit the heavyweight when he watched his fight with Deontay Wilder in the company of two of the finest fighters in the world.
The decorated Bob Arum of Top Rank signed Fury to a lucrative contract that commits him to fighting on ESPN, and made Saturday’s fight in Las Vegas against Germany’s Tom Schwarz in an attempt to continue raising his profile in the US.
Arum was first seduced by Fury’s struggles with depression, and then watched the remarkable performance he produced in December’s dramatic draw with Wilder when many felt his three troubled years of inactivity meant he would no longer be able to convince.
Vasyl Lomachenko, considered the world’s finest fighter, and his fellow Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk, another of the few legitimate contenders to that title, were similarly impressed with Fury as they joined Arum, who has also previously promoted Manny Pacquiao, Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali.
Arum that night had attended the fight between Adonis Stevenson and Oleksandr Gvozdyk, another Ukrainian being supported by his talented compatriots, and he explained: “I’ll never forget it.
“I was doing a fight in Canada, it was a light-heavyweight championship with Stevenson and Gvodzyk so I had all the Ukrainians with me; Lomachenko was with me, Usyk too. (Fury’s) fight went on after our fight was over; we were scoring the fight and at first we said it was a no-contest fight and then Fury kept piling up the rounds.
“We had Fury pretty well ahead and the way he conducted himself afterwards (when it was felt he should have been awarded victory), instead of just bitching, really endeared me.”
Arum made Fury and his UK promoter Frank Warren so irresistible an offer that the highly sought-after rematch with Wilder, which had appeared inevitable for earlier this year, has so far been delayed, and he has since ensured Fury has made multiple television appearances in the US.
The promoter may have been doing his job when he compared his charisma to that of the late Ali, but he regardless is convinced by Fury’s commercial potential – with which he is yet to truly succeed in Britain – and believes that further riches will come with further in-ring success.
“I’m not going to tell him anything until it happens,” Arum said. “But I know it will happen. (But) do I know that he’ll hit the jackpot the way George (Foreman) did, with an endorsement? Of course not, that’s a miracle.
“They didn’t have enough money to pay him, they gave him a piece of the business, 40 per cent and he ended up selling it for a quarter of a billion dollars. That I can’t promise.”