The WBC’s deadline of 30 days for heavyweight champion Tyson ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury to set up a unification fight with IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk has now expired.
Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) will now almost surely be ordered by the World Boxing Council to face his WBC mandatory Dillian Whyte when the sanctioning body meets at their convention next week in Mexico, beginning on Tuesday.
Once the WBC orders the Fury-Whyte fight, it will leave Fury a big decision to make. Does he take the fight against the hard-hitting Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) or vacate his WBC belt and possibly retire or go the Franchise route?
Should Fury duck Whyte?
Let’s put it this way. If Fury ducks Whyte by retiring, vacating, or begging the WBC to make him their Franchise champion, he’s never going to hear the end of it. The criticism Fury will receive from boxing fans will follow him for the remainder of his career and likely his life.
If Fury can live with the constant insults he receives from the boxing public for ducking Whyte, he should go ahead and do it. I mean, the money that Fury will make by fighting the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Oleksandr Usyk II rematch will be enormous.
If Fury can stand himself after ducking Whyte, the $100 million+ that he’s expected to receive from fighting the Joshua-Usyk 2 winner is money that will keep his children and their children living in luxury for their entire lives.
Massive loot waiting for Fury in 2022
That’s a dynasty type of money like with the Kennedy family in the U.S. If Fury thinks about his family, it might be worth it for him to swerve the risky Whyte fight and sit and wait to fight the winner of the Joshua vs. Usyk rematch.
Fury could justify that move by looking at it from a business perspective. Would the great John Rockefeller have taken a risky action like that? I doubt it. For that reason, you can say Fury should dump the WBC belt and let Whyte go after the vacated strap against whoever the sanctioning body chooses.
Whyte, 33, will be like a shark in the water, wanting to take Fury apart because if he beats ‘The Gypsy King,’ he’ll be the one that gets the massive payday fighting the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Oleksandr 2 rematch in 2022.
It’s got to be difficult for Fury because he looked vulnerable in his last fight against Deontay Wilder, getting dropped twice and arguably dodging a knockout with a long count in the fourth round.
Fury should have lost that fight, but somehow he lucked out with the referee giving what many boxing fans believed was a long count that rivaled the Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunny ‘Long Count Fight’ on September 22, 1927.
The punch resistance that Fury once had looked absent against Deontay, and that’s something that Whyte will take full advantage of if he gets the opportunity to face Tyson next.
A count is not, and never has been, a stopwatch that starts when you hit the canvas. The boxer pays attention to the actual count, and takes what time they’re given.
If Fury gets a full and proper training camp in, comes into the fight lighter, he can move around and smack Whyte all night and make him looks stupid. Assuming those things, it’s not that dangerous a fight.
“and arguably dodging a knockout with a long count in the fourth round.”
Was the count on Foreman too quick in the Ali fight?
Does it make any difference?