Tyson Fury will attempt to give Deontay Wilder his WBC heavyweight title rematch — finally — as the duo are set to go at it for a third time on Oct. 9.
The trilogy bout initially failed to settle on a number of 2020 dates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before a date in July was also scrapped due to a positive COVID-19 test in the Fury camp.
Fury recently revealed that conquering 'The Bronze Bomber' once and for all is part of a five-fight plan he hopes to execute: Wilder III, a WBC mandatory against fellow Brit Dillian Whyte back on home soil before 2021 is over, the long-anticipated unification megafight with WBA, WBO and IBF champ Anthony Joshua next year, a money-spinning rematch with 'AJ' soonafter, and finally, curiously enough, a third fight against a boxer he has twice beaten decisively — Derek Chisora.
But, this is boxing, after all. Fights fall through all the time, especially in the wake of the coronavirus. Fury himself has seen countless planned contests over the years fall by the wayside: David Haye, a Wladimir Klitschko rematch, all of the Wilder false starts and more.
So, what do the experts make of his ambitious forward planning?
Ak and Barak on The DAZN Boxing Show had their say on a recent episode (which you can watch, in addition to five new episodes each day plus a host of live and archived sports, with a DAZN subscription).
"So here's a man who is scheduling the rest of his career," said Ak. "I don't see anything wrong with that. He just has to be prepared to win every fight in order to execute that.
Barak chimed in, saying: "Well, first of all, I think there's some boxers that don't want to talk about whatever you ask them. And they just want to talk about the fight at hand. You know, like when Vergil Ortiz was fighting. He was like, you know why I keep asking me about Terence Crawford. I don't know if that fight's gonna happen. I can definitely understand that.
"But if you really want me to give my opinion on this list, some of it sounds funny, especially talking about I'll go two years and go bonkers again. That's it. That's that's fear. You know how he does, he just says crazy stuff just for that, just to sound crazy.
"But to talk about Dillian Whyte after Wilder in December. Now you're talking about fighting like Canelo, now you're talking about you're trying to be as active as Canelo fighting somebody like Dillian Whyte and then I don't know who on this planet would call Whyte an easy fight. But him. You know, that's pretty crazy right there.
"And then after two fights with Joshua, you're gonna fight Chisora? Why? They fought two times already. One was a 10th, round stoppage. And the other one was a unanimous decision now, but both for Fury, but that was 2011, 2014. Like, can we say he deserves it? No, sorry, just had two losses."
Ak responded: "Here's the thing: he's gonna make it a little harder for himself because those guys sit back saying, Oh, you you're planning ahead. You're gonna beat all of us. That's gonna put a little extra spice on ot. You know all these guys when they training for him. So no, it's not gonna be easy,
"I do respect the man, you know, planning his future. There's nothing wrong with that, you know, people do it in any genre that they're in. And if you would execute that, imagine a couple years from now, if he beat all of these guys, how we're gonna look at this guy then. 'Oh, my God, he's Nostradamus!' So, so I'm not totally upset with it.
"But I want him to focus and take every fight seriously, especially when he has coming up against Deontay Wilder, who's been looking great. You know, with Malik Scott, that's not gonna be an easy fight at all."
You can check out the entire discussion in depth, as well as tons more boxing debate and analysts, every weekday on The DAZN Boxing Show.