Tyson Fury claims that rejecting Deontay Wilder rematch would have cost him nearly £70m

Tyson Fury has revealed just how much money he would have had to pay to avoid a trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder.

The rivals are set to meet in the boxing ring for a third time on 9 October, with Briton Fury having stopped the American in February 2020 to regain the WBC heavyweight title, following the rivals’ split draw in December 2018.

Having comprehensively beaten Wilder last time out, Fury turned his attention to a long-awaited, highly-anticipated unification bout with compatriot Anthony Joshua – only for a judge to rule in May that Fury must face Wilder a third time, due to a contract clause exercised by the ‘Bronze Bomber’.

For a short while, it seemed that Fury might try to pay a financial settlement to avoid the contest and focus on fighting Joshua, but it was soon announced that the trilogy with Wilder would be completed in July. Following a positive Covid-19 test result recorded by Fury, the fight was postponed until October, when it will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“The talk was me and Joshua were going to fight, no contracts were signed or anything like that,” Fury said on Gary Neville’s The Overlap podcast.

“Then all of a sudden, Deontay Wilder has put on an arbitration against me – from a top judge and all the best lawyers in America. So I can’t do anything about that.

“If you want to bring a court case against me in America, even if I haven’t done anything, I’ve got to defend it – or else I’m guilty. So I said: ‘Let’s do it.’

“So they want to go to court, they want to fight for his rematch, his contract had expired because of Covid. But fair is fair, I would want my third fight. It wasn’t really my fault or Wilder’s fault the third fight didn’t happen, the world just got turned on its head.

“We’re in court now and he won the case, there’s not much I could do. It’s got nothing to do with the belt, it’s contracted to me. I could go like this [pretends to boot his title belt away] and we would just be fighting each other without the belt.

“Do you know how much the suing case would have been if I didn’t fight him? €80million [£68m]. This was all going on in the background and they [Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn] knew all that.

“All of sudden, it’s my fault.”

Neither Fury nor Wilder has fought since their rematch in February 2020, which ended when the American’s team threw in the towel in round seven.