Negotiations between the camps of the two world champions have started, per ESPN. Sources close to the media giant said that the potential venue for the fight could be Saudi Arabia or elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula.
Fury’s adviser, MTK, which is based in Dubai, is negotiating for Fury on behalf of his co-promoters, Top Rank and Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions.
Sources told Kriegel that MTK is handling negotiations because of a rift between Warren and Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing. Sources said the offer to Fury would have to be large enough to pay Deontay Wilder, who is coming off surgery, to waive his contractual right to an immediate rematch. Fury knocked out Wilder in the seventh round in February, and the third fight is tentatively planned for late this year.
“The conversations between myself and MTK are that we’ve had an approach,” Eddie Hearn said. “We’ve had a number of approaches from territories to stage that fight. So the only discussions at the moment are where this fight takes place — and we don’t even know when this fight could take place. … We’re certainly open to having discussions about the possibility of this happening this year or in the next fight.
“There’s more chance at the moment that the bigger money could come next year because we don’t even know if we can do live crowds in November, December.”
For now, Top Rank’s Bob Arum is content to wait on the financials.
“Let’s see what type of offers we get from the Middle East,” Arum said, “because there is a real frenzy with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, with the Emirates, to do events, to open up these countries in the winter and into next year. It would be foolish for us to not consider those types of offers.”
As for Fury, when contacted by ESPN, he said, “I’ll fight in Timbuktu if the money’s right. I have a bag, and I will travel.”
