With all the talk of a potential undisputed unification fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua for next year, it was easy to forget Fury must take on and beat Deontay Wilder.
With the world currently battling the current pandemic and none to limited fans likely to be allowed in venues in the UK and America, the search is on for a venue for the trilogy fight.
Mike Altamura is the international consultant for MTK, who manage Fury, he has been privy to some of the plans for the super fight and revealed to Press Box PR that Australia is an “exciting proposition”, while Macau, China, is another location under consideration.
“And there’s an exciting proposition of the event coming to Sydney, Australia, I think Macau is looking pretty promising, and from what I understand Las Vegas is too.” Altamura said.
“We have been in constant discussions with our promoter Bob Arum and right now the prominent sites are Macau and Las Vegas – they’ve been discussing running the event at Allegiant Stadium, the new home of The Raiders. Kind of like a scaled-back event because they still have to figure out the capacity. And there is also the exciting proposition of the event coming to Sydney, Australia.
“I would say Australia is a slight outsider. I think Macau is looking pretty promising, and from what I understand Las Vegas is too.
“Late 2020 is the target, so probably November or December period, I can’t see the fight shifting in 2021 because ideally we’d want to keep 2021 free to explore the Anthony Joshua possibilities once Tyson Fury has handled his obligations, but we are no way underestimating the challenge that is Deontay Wilder.”
According to Altamura, Macau is a frontrunner to host the fight.
“There’s so much positive business history between Top Rank and the sites in Macau, particularly The Venetian casino, so it would be open and shut in regards to what the site fee would be. And then it’s just weighing up what time the event would ideally be hosted to allow for optimal revenue for PPV streams around the world, so that’s why Macau makes sense, but it’s still very early days.”
He also goes on to say that talks have been held for Australia to host the fight.
“The talks have been relatively advanced between Top Rank and D&L. D&L previously hosted the Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn bout, so they’ve had quite a bit of success in relation to drawing government grants, securing funding from the tourism sector, so we’ve just got to weigh up the options.
“If you look at the Horn-Pacquiao event in Australia, and you look at the investment from the government, and then also the tourism, and the stimulation in the economy it provided, there are a lot of upsides in bringing the biggest events in the world to Australia.”
Las Vegas is one of the homes of big time boxing and with a newly built stadium available could Vegas be able to host a set amount of fans?
“With Las Vegas, for example, that wouldn’t be full capacity from what I understand. I’m not sure if Vegas would be a 10,000 person cap, or what the numbers would be, but it would have to be something that would logistically work for Top Rank to promote the fight.”
Barry Hearn has stated he has doubts that the trilogy will take place, Altamura answers back.
“In the times we are currently dealing with, there are so many different factors that are affected, but there’s a reason why Top Rank has been at the absolute elite of the sport for 50 years now, that’s because they dot all the Is and cross the Ts. Part of the process right now is exploring the best possible options. We are very confident that when those options are put on the table, the deal will be satisfying for all parties. In regards to Barry Hearn’s comments, we have full confidence in our promoter Top Rank being able to secure the necessary deals.”
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