SAUDIS BID TO STAGE £400m FURY SHOWDOWN
SAUDI ARABIA is ready to host a £400 million mega-fight between Tyson Fury and either Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua. Four members of the Saudi royal family sat incognito at ringside in Las Vegas on Saturday night as Fury crushed the biggest puncher in ring history and transformed the landscape of heavyweight boxing. The Saudi party, dressed in Western fashion, was led by Prince Khaled, which will alarm Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn. It was with this high-ranking dignitary that he collaborated on Joshua’s December rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr in Riyadh. Khaled is delegated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to bring major sports events to Saudi Arabia which can polish the nation’s troubled human rights image. They consider no one in sport bigger now than the Gypsy King, who has not only established
himself as the pre-eminent heavyweight in the world, with the outstanding performance overseas by any British fighter in history, but also reaffirmed his reputation as the ring’s great entertainer.
The Saudis were given a preview of Fury the showman when he made a pilot appearance in WWE wrestling in Riyadh before Christmas and it seems not to matter to them who Fury fights, or in what order. He is viewed as key to unlocking a floodgate of international tourism.
Joshua banked $85 million for regaining his collection of belts from Ruiz in a temporary arena.
Now the Saudis envisage a series of fights for Fury in the national stadium, the first in October.
Who against? Most likely Wilder, who has 30 days in which to decide whether to risk another hospitalising beating in a trilogy fight or to accept a substantial step-aside offer which would trigger tough negotiations with Joshua.
Fury expects the Bronze Bomber to gird himself for another battle. He is talking of their second rematch taking place at the newly constructed NFL stadium here in Las Vegas, which is soon to be home to the relocated Oakland Raiders.
That is improbable since the overwhelming manner of Fury’s victory will inevitably reduce the US public’s box office appetite for a third fight.
Fury’s co-promoter Frank Warren said: ‘We are receiving loads of offers for Fury. It could be in Las Vegas but whether it’s Wilder or Joshua, it would be huge back in London. Whoever, Tyson is now very much the world’s No1 attraction. We are way past all that nonsense about Joshua wanting 65 or 70 per cent of the purse. If anything, it’s the other way around now.
‘Whether AJ will even want to take the fight, we don’t know. What he does know is that he would get knocked out even harder than Wilder now that Tyson has changed his style.’
That switch from dancing defence to deadly attack was as astonishing as the execution of the strategy, devised as it was in only eight weeks by his new trainer Javan ‘SugarHill’ Steward.
Fury said: ‘This is the way I’m going to be boxing from now on.’