There is fair room for speculation on Tyson Fury’s COVID-19 story
What was briefly speculation is now fact; the third Fury versus Wilder prizefight has officially been suspended. After initially reporting that there was an outbreak in his camp, WBC World heavyweight champion Tyson “The Gypsy King” Fury (30-0-1, 21 KO’s) has declared that he has contracted COVID-19. As a direct result, his July 24 bout with Deontay “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KO’s) is now off. A date in October will be the new target.
There is no doubt that a great many people will be suspicious of the legitimacy of this new turn of events. The same was the case when Top Rank fighter and unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez pulled out his latest fight. Lopez was supposed to fight George Kambosos on June 19 before withdrawing with a COVID-19 contraction alibi. The common conspiracy theory here was the paltry ticket sales were the real underlying reason why Lopez backed away from the bout.
A HISTORY OF VIOLATIONS
The Fury situation is an eye-brow raising scenario. Even more so since Fury’s co-promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, is on record saying that the entire Fury team was fully vaccinated. In the aftermath of Lopez’s fight cancellation, Arum held the Gypsy King and his team up as a sterling example of responsibility. If true though, this would mean that every vaccination failed, or, perhaps they never took the vaccination at all. Or, of course, this could be a fabrication all together and just a stalling technique to acquire more preparation time.
After all, Fury is no stranger to controversy. The WBC champion has twice been busted for drug use. In 2015, he was popped over PED substance nandrolone. Then in 2016, he was busted for having cocaine in his system. The PED’s incident was particularly irregular. This was because Fury would claim that he failed due to eating wild boar meat. The trouble with this is Martin Carefoot, the farmer who supposedly sold him the meat, denies that it ever happened. If there is any validity to Carefoot’s claims, then using COVID-19 as a ‘get out of jail free’ card is not hard to believe.
TO BE CONTINUED
Nevertheless, Jamel Herring, another Top Rank fighter, twice contracted the virus and thereby had two separate fight postponements. In his case, there was little controversy when the fights were pushed back. So there is the significant possibility that there is nothing duplicitous at play here. Given all the moving parts, it will be interesting to see where this ever-twisting Wilder v Fury saga will go next. Regardless of how it resolves itself however, 3kingsboxing will be there to report the tale.
By: Bakari Simpson
