Home Boxing News Eddie Hearn claims Deontay Wilder has bottled it after Tyson Fury fight...

Eddie Hearn claims Deontay Wilder has bottled it after Tyson Fury fight cancelled

Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury

Eddie Hearn has claimed Deontay Wilder 42-1-1 (41) either doesn’t want a third fight with Tyson Fury 30-0-1 (21) or his team is simply inept at contract negotiations.

The 32-year-old Fury claimed the WBC heavyweight title with a dominant seventh-round stoppage of Wilder in February following the pair’s controversial draw in December 2018.

After their last fight Wilder, 34, enacted the immediate rematch clause in the contract with the bout expected to take place in the northern summer before the global coronavirus pandemic forcing the date back to December.

But Team Fury has said the fight is now off after the Wilder camp reportedly wanted to push the date out to 2021.

“Tyson has said enough is enough, he is not going to wait longer and he will fight in London in December,” co-promoter Frank Warren told talkSPORT.

“That is what will happen. We haven’t finalised who it will be or anything yet, but that is what will happen. As far as he is concerned, that contract [with Wilder] is at an end. It can’t go on forever.

“Everybody has worked hard to get the Wilder fight on, but it’s just not happening.

“Maybe next year or some time down the road we will do it, but our immediate job is to get Tyson sorted out for December.”

Along with Fury’s US co-promoter Bob Arum, Warren says the contract had a sunset clause in place for a third fight and that the deadline had now passed.

Hearn, who promotes Fury’s rival Anthony Joshua, says it beggars belief that Team Wilder didn’t have a more watertight agreement in place.

“Deontay Wilder has just vanished from the earth and just doesn’t fancy fighting anymore, or his advisers have done the worst contract in boxing history,” Hearn told iFL TV.

“It just expired. We’re in a global pandemic. You’re telling me that you’ve done a contract that doesn’t protect yourself against force majeure, and you no longer have a rematch clause because it just expired?

“I don’t believe Shelly Finkel (Wilder’s manager) would have done that, but Arum and those guys are goading them, saying ‘Goodbye, it’s expired’. And Shelly is coming out, going, ‘I hope we can do the fight’.

“Why aren’t you coming out to protect your rights? Say, ‘No, you signed the rematch, here’s the contract. We’re having it. We’ll still take it’.”

Finkel has shrugged off criticism his fighter doesn’t want to complete the trilogy.

“He’s entitled to his opinion, he can think anything he wants,” Finkel said.

“Deontay and I would like to have the next fight, as planned, against Fury. We’ll fight him any date, any place.”

Wilder has been uncharacteristically quiet about the proposed Fury fight in recent months, but his sparring partner Raphael Akpejiori says the American power-punching says he is still training for the December date.

“I’m not involved in the politics or anything but one thing I know from Deontay is he is ready to go in December,” the heavyweight prospect told The Sun.

“Deontay is expecting Wilder-Fury in December, I’m just saying what Deontay is expecting.

“He is expecting Wilder-Fury in December, that’s what he’s been told and that is what he is training for and he’s ready to go.”