The highly-anticipated third fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder has reportedly been thrown into a state of uncertainty. According to Mike Coppinger of ESPN, Fury, the reigning WBC and The Ring heavyweight champion, has seen an outbreak of COVID-19 in his camp 16 days before he’s expected to step into the ring.
While it is not clear if Fury himself has caught the novel coronavirus, but it has gotten to the point within his camp that a decision needs to be made whether or not things will go on as planned on July 24 or get moved to a later date.
Via ESPN:
No official determination has yet been made on whether the fight, set to be held at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and broadcast on ESPN+ PPV, will proceed as planned.
The fight is a joint pay-per-view with FOX, and that network has the Manny Pacquiao-Errol Spence Jr. PPV on Aug. 21, so it’s likely Fury-Wilder 3 would be moved to September, sources told ESPN.
Fury and Wilder have fought twice in the last three years. Back in 2018, the two went 12 rounds with Wilder’s WBC title on the line in a fight that was somewhat controversially deemed a draw. About 15 months later, they stepped back into the ring again and Fury put forth a championship-winning performance, earning a TKO in the seventh round.
While it looked like Fury was slated to get a heavyweight unification bout with Anthony Joshua in August, an arbiter determined that he was contractually obligated to fight Wilder a third time. Now, the question is whether that fight will happen in two weeks or a little bit later this year.