It's looking more like the undisputed fight will never happen now. I've done a long post on the previous page discussing the ins and outs of Fury's side's deception. Here comes another one because it's more annoying the more I think about it.
What interests me is why Arum and Warren have been so deceptive. Look at the network scene and what heavyweights they have signed with each and what do you see? Add the fact that Whyte is STILL waiting for his WBC title shot and think about who he's signed with. It's more than possible that although they might fancy Fury's chances, letting AJ fight for that belt is not a risk any of them were ever prepared to take. Arum doesn't like to gamble and neither does Warren, the PBC are even worse. The gamble is the risk of DAZN having all the heavyweight belts, that would mean all the top fighters would have to go and deal with Eddie if AJ became undisputed or Whyte beat Wilder when that fight was supposed to happen. Long term, that would be bad for all of them and DAZN would become an even bigger threat to them. They also share a bitterness towards Eddie, so playing him wasn't something they had to think hard about.
On the fighter's side, some believe that the fight itself will be scripted WWE style, cement their legacies by only fighting each other and claiming AJ "doesn't want this smoke". Fury has had his comeback story and undertaker moment. Next Wilder comes back "from the ashes" and outboxes Fury which "shocks the world" by winning in a fashion nobody expected. After over 10 years of neglecting his fundamentals and not taking training seriously. He's posting Rocky montages of chopping wood and lifting logs. If that does come to pass, then it would be hard to argue that it doesn't sound like a movie/WWE script. I'm not convinced that Fury would ever give his 0 up willingly myself though, but I wouldn't rule out him retiring on another draw after his next fight. What I hope, is Fury wins comfortably again and Wilder is out of the picture. Then Fury does enter the negotiations for the undisputed with AJ again. AJ has to fight Usyk at the very least now though which is no small task.
Fury had to be in on this too IMO because there's no signs of him wanting to challenge the arbitration decision, which could be done and you'd think he would if he really wanted to fight AJ and have the biggest fight in boxing after saying he'd never fight Wilder ever again publicly. Especially if the contract had expired. The extension could be disputed but some say Bob was lying that it ever expired, so maybe there is no extension. The accusations Wilder made after the 2nd fight, could be dragged up in court and go a long way to justifying Fury's decision not to want to fight him and to keep his belt in the process. They can't force the 3rd fight even without that but it was always likely that Fury would have to pay something in compensation. So as I said before, why did Arum and Fury enter mediation-arbitration in the first place and then make the excuse that they don't want to pay a dime? Their actions don't make sense which points to a scheme. Nobody knows the terms of the rematch clause, whether the WBC title is part of it and the order in which Fury has to face him etc However there is also a claim for a huge loss of earnings that would blow away Wilder's own claim($20m?) due to the arbitration decision. The fact that there was no resistance to this decision, that Fury was on board with it within hours talking about it on twitter, is suspicious. "It's legally binding" they are telling us... Okay then nothing you can do huh? Not go to the courts(yes it can be challenged) as you would have done in the first place instead of mediation-arbitration if you didn't want to pay anything? Likewise Wilder would have gone straight to court too if he wanted the fight and they showed no signs of coming to an agreement(they didn't publicly). Like Lennox Lewis did, straight away, when Hasim Rahman didn't want to honour their rematch clause and won.
They are all in on this one way or another, while Hearn, AJ and the boxing fans were taken for a ride.
