At this point, the only question regarding the December 3 WBC heavyweight title bout between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora is whether fans are willing to pay the pay-per-view asking price.
Broadcaster BT Sport Box Office has set the UK price at £26.95 (just over $32 USD) for Fury’s third defense of his second world heavyweight title reign.
UK fans have expressed their extreme displeasure with the price of the event– tied for the most expensive of the British PPV era with the much more significant Anthony Joshua-Oleksandr Usyk 2 contest in August– for a bout many see as a mismatch. Fury has beaten Chisora twice already, decisively so, and is expected to cruise to a third victory this time around. The pay-per-view asking price is also significantly higher than the fee charged for Fury’s last two fights– against Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte.
Fury, however, has been bending over backwards to justify the Chisora fight, making excuses that range from reasonable to ridiculous.
“What is a challenge, though? Getting an opponent’s a challenge,” Fury said on a now-infamous interview with YouTuber True Geordie that saw the defending champ end the chat early amid a firestorm of his insults aimed at the host. “That’s the challenge. First of all, when I mentioned my return, comeback fight, I offered it to Oleksandr Usyk…he was offered a very lot of money that I’m not at liberty to say on camera to fight on December the 3rd, but he said he needed like a six-month training camp or some stupidness like that. I don’t know, I don’t get involved in the nitty-gritty.
“It’s my career, why would I wait for somebody else, someone like a Ukranian foreign dosser? It’s on my terms, I run boxing. I don’t dance to somebody else’s tune…
“I don’t know why [Chisora deserves the title fight], because Usyk beat Joshua, didn’t he, quite easily. And Chisora pushed Usyk all the way, 50/50 fight. So if Chisora’s no good then neither is Usyk, ‘cause I rate them about the same…
“You take the top 15 heavyweights, there are a few foreigners in there who nobody knows about.
“They might have undefeated records, but when I fight those foreigners nobody’s interested anyway.
“You’re better off with somebody who you know is a household name, who people can relate to and can support and sing ‘Oh, Derek Chisora’ than somebody who’s name you can’t even pronounce and they’ve never heard of.”
Fury would then dip his big toe in the deep end of delusion by trying to make the claim that this upcoming Chisora bout will be “historical.”
“It’s history making,” The Gypsy King claimed. “I’ll be the first heavyweight champion in history to complete two trilogies.”
Chisora, meanwhile, couldn’t care less about the fan objections or the disrespect tossed his way as a supposedly unworthy challenger.
“No, I’m okay. My bank account don’t feel disrespected,” Chisora told iFL TV when asked if he feels disrespected from poor fan reception of his heavyweight title shot.
“You can say whatever you want to say, you mother f***ers. I don’t give a s**t,” Chisora blasted. “I don’t care what you want to say. Any way you slice it, Fury-Chisora 3 is not going to go down smoothly with UK fight fans. Unless a Fight of the Year battle develops or a shocking upset takes place, this bout will be remembered for its cynicism and its perceived disregard for the fans’ wishes. It’ll be remembered as the bout where fans were asked to pay more for less.
