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Fury-Wilder Heavyweight Fight Postponed  – WBC

File photo:  Deontay Wilder punches Tyson Fury in the ninth round fighting to a draw during the WBC Heavyweight Championship at Staples Center on December 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Harry How/Getty Images/AFP


Tyson Fury (L) punches Deontay Wilder during their Heavyweight bout for Wilder’s WBC and Fury’s lineal heavyweight title on February 22, 2020 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Al Bello/Getty Images/AFP AL BELLO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP
File photo:  Deontay Wilder punches Tyson Fury in the ninth round fighting to a draw during the WBC Heavyweight Championship at Staples Center on December 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Harry How/Getty Images/AFP

 

Tyson Fury’s heavyweight title defence against Deontay Wilder has been postponed after the champion and members of his camp contracted Covid-19, the World Boxing Council confirmed on Friday.

In a brief post on Twitter, the WBC confirmed the July 24 bout had been postponed but did not say when the trilogy fight would be rescheduled.

“Fury vs Wilder III will be postponed,” the WBC said. “We wish Tyson Fury’s team and him speedy recovery from COVID.”

Multiple reports in the US and Britain have said Fury and several members of his team had tested positive for Covid-19 at their Las Vegas training base.

ESPN reported that the fight at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena had been tentatively rescheduled for October 9.

The positive test was the latest twist to what has been a tortuous year for Fury.

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 This combination of pictures created on December 14, 2020 shows Boxer Tyson Fury (L) during a press conference in Los Angeles, California on January 25, 2020, and British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua during a press conference in Ad Diriyah, a Unesco-listed heritage site, outside Riyadh, on December 4, 2019. (Photos by RINGO CHIU and FAYEZ NURELDINE / AFP)

 

The undefeated “Gypsy King” had been set to face a money-spinning heavyweight unification fight against fellow Briton Anthony Joshua.

However that fight was scuppered after an arbitrator ruled that Fury was legally obligated to face Wilder in a third fight.

Fury handed Wilder a brutal beating in seven one-sided rounds in their second fight in February 2020.

Their first fight, in December 2018, ended in a controversial split-decision draw in which Fury was knocked down twice.

Neither Wilder, 35, nor Fury, has fought since their bout in Las Vegas last year.

AFP