Deontay Wilder doesn’t believe that Tyson Fury actually contracted COVID-19 before their third fight was postponed nearly three months ago.
Evan Korn – a spokesman for Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., Fury’s co-promoter – informed that Fury failed a COVID test administered early in July.
“To the best of my recollection, the NSAC did not receive any documentation from the fighters that were scheduled to fight on the Fury-Wilder card,” Bob Bennett, executive director of the NSAC, told BoxingScene.com. “Additionally, none of our ringside physicians administered a lab-based PCR test to any of the fighters on the Fury-Wilder card.”
Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) couldn’t be reached for comment, either, but the former WBC heavyweight champion stated during a recent episode of “The PBC Podcast” that he believes Fury faked having COVID-19 to buy more time to prepare for their third fight.
“I can’t control what they’re doing on their side,” Wilder told co-hosts Kenneth Bouhairie and Michael Rosenthal. “I can’t control whether this is a lie or it’s the truth. You know what I’m saying? Because I don’t believe none of it, nothing that they’ve done. Anybody that’s been trying to run since July, anybody that’s paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to not fight, you can’t believe that person. You know? They trying to run away from it – I’m running to it. When it’s like that, you can’t believe nothing. You know, and honestly, I don’t believe he had no COVID. You know, look at his actions. Look at what he’s done. Been at different places and stuff like that. He definitely don’t act like it.”
“I don’t care what Deontay Wilder says,” Fury told BoxingScene.com.
“Because, you know, if we wanna take this publicly, then we have medical records by doctors here in Las Vegas who tested me. So yeah, I don’t think you can fake COVID with the PCR test, when they stick a big thing up your nose. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. You know, there would be no reason for me to want COVID and get out of a Deontay Wilder fight. Why would I wanna chuck away 20, 30 million dollars to fight someone I’ve already knocked out quite comfortable? Why wouldn’t I wanna take that, like a lottery win for free?”
