By Olu Allen
Fury Vs. Dillian Whyte on ESPN PPV On April 23rd.
The contest will also be shown on BT Sports Box Office pay-per-view in the UK. Frank Warren won the purse bid on Friday, and the match is being targeted for the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
Fury will get $32 million and Whyte 8.2 million, which was how it was initially confirmed. But the WBC has chosen to hold back 10% of the purse for the winner’s bonus.
The purses will now be Fury getting $7.9 million and Whyte $7.4M. Whoever wins the fight will get an additional $4.1 million.
Fury will be using unbeaten heavyweight prospect, Jared Anderson, as his sparring partner to help him prepare for the fight. Anderson is a fighter that helped Fury get ready for his recent trilogy match with Deontsy Wilder, which he won by a late stoppage.
With the vast $41 million winning purse bid by promoter Frank Warren on Friday, the money has got to come from somewhere to make up for the expenditures for the huge purses for Fury and Whyte. PPV in the U.S and UK, along with ticket sales, will hopefully cover the costs.
The promoters for the event are going to need to stack the undercard with recognizable U.S fighters if they want to bring in a lot of PPV buys because it’s not enough that Fury will be fighting in the main event.
Anthony Joshua will be meeting IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk in May in their rematch, says promoter Eddie Hearn. The schedule that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn laid out on Friday is based on him winning the purse bid today for the Fury vs. Whyte fight.
These excellent fights will lead to the winners facing each other later this year for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
This week, there were efforts to put together a step aside deal for Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) and Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) to step aside so that Fury and Usyk could meet for the undisputed championship in March or April.
According to Hearn, Fury’s strange request for a tune-up in March wrecked the step aside deal. Now, Fury is taking an arguably riskier fight against Whyte, and he’s likely to take a lot more punishment against him than he would have had he agreed to the plan for him to face Usyk.
