By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury says his July 24th fight with Deontay Wilder is a much bigger affair to the U.S boxing fans than a match between him and Anthony Joshua. As far as U.S fans go, Joshua is from another galaxy, and he doesn’t exist for them.
The only reason the U.S fans care about Fury is that he makes an effort to compete in America, and he’s been able to ride on the popular heavyweight Deontay’s coattails to increase his popularity.
Fury says the American fans don’t care about the three-belt heavyweight champion Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) because, for them, he’s the guy that was knocked out by a fat Andy Ruiz Jr when he traveled to the U.S and fought him in New York in 2019.
Sadly, Joshua hasn’t been back to the U.S to fight ever since. That obviously was a mistake on Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn’s part not to bring the Ruiz Jr rematch back to the U.S so that the American boxing fans could see AJ redeem himself.
Instead of doing that, Joshua took the Ruiz Jr second fight to Saudi Arabia for the bigger payday.
The American boxing fans won’t care about Fury soon if he loses the trilogy fight with former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) on July 24th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tyson says Wilder hasn’t accepted his defeat
“He’s the one that has got to tell everyone why he lost and sack everybody in his team,” said Tyson Fury to Gareth Davies at iFL TV.
“The only way you can move on from that is acceptance,” Fury said about Wilder. “The way he’s been acting and conducting, he can’t accept defeat. Even after all this time, he hasn’t moved on from defeat.”
It’s easy for Fury to pontificate about how Wilder hasn’t moved on, but you can bet that if the shoe were on the other foot, he would be deeply troubled about losing to him.
For example, if the referee Jack Reiss had stopped the first fight in the 12th round when Wilder knocked Fury out cold, would the Gyspy King not be obsessed with avenging the loss?
If Fury was disqualified for throwing rabbit punches in the second fight, would he not be out for revenge against Wilder on July 24th.
Again, it’s easy for Fury to lecture about how Wilder hasn’t accepted defeat, but he would be doing the same thing if he had lost one or both of their fights. Wilder could have won both of those fights.
Could Fury have won the last fight if he was penalized repeatedly for throwing rabbit punches? Probably not.
It’s self-explanatory that Wilder would have won the first fight with Fury if the referee had stopped the contest in the 12th round after he knocked him out cold.
“He’s not to be underestimated,” Fury said of Wilder. “He’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Until I get through Deontay Wilder, I have no interest in Anthony Joshua. If that fight was going to happen, it would have happened.
Fury: Joshua is a nobody in America
Over here in America, Anthony Joshua is a nobody. They’re not interested. This [Fury vs. Wilder] is the bigger fight by far.
“It’s much bigger because of the controversy and we’ve been on pay-per-view twice and the general public in America is starting to get to know us a lot better than they did the first time and second time.
“It’s a very easily anticipated fight. Over here, me and Anthony Joshua isn’t a big fight, and me and Deontay Wilder are. Over in Britain, it’s a one-sided affair.
“Obviously, me and AJ is the biggest fight. But over here, he’s [Joshua] only known for getting knocked out by the fat guy [Andy Ruiz Jr], who didn’t train.
“So they’re not really interested in it until he [Joshua] can do something,” said Fury about the Wilder trilogy being bigger in the U.S than a future fight with Joshua.
