Wilder & Fury Deal Close:

Wilder & Fury Deal Close:

The negotiations designed to make Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder share a ring and give us an undisputed world heavyweight champion broke down without an agreement. But if Tyson Fury is to be believed it seems that talks to make a fight between Fury and Wilder are at an advanced stage. Fury speaking to Sky Sports today says it’s a 99% done deal.

On Monday Fury said “I can confirm that me and Deontay Wilder are in negotiations. Very close to being done,” Fury states “It is out there now and I can reveal that negotiations are being very strong for December. We’re almost done with this deal.”

Fury recently made his return to the ring after a near 3-year absence with the win over Sefer Seferi and is scheduled to continue his comeback on the Frampton show on 18th August against the Italian Francesco Pianeta.

Seferi wasn’t much of a test and the fight whilst helping Fury shed some of the ring rust he had accumulated, it didn’t really give us much of an indication as to what Fury has left.

Pianeta will provide a much sterner test but if the Wilder fight does get made for the end of the year I have major concerns it will be too much too soon for the former world heavyweight champion.

In an interview with talkSPORT David Haye isn’t convinced that a fight with Wilder this soon in his comeback is in his best interests:

I’m not sure whether a Deontay Wilder fight would be in his [Fury’s] best interests right now,” Haye said.

“Personally I think he’d need maybe two, three, four more fights after this next one against Pianeta to give himself the best opportunity.

“But sometimes the heavyweight championship pops up and there’s an opportunity to gate-crash the division, and sometimes there’s a lot of money involved.”

I tend to agree with Haye, I’m not convinced that beating the likes of Seferi and Pianeta fully prepares Fury for a fight with the WBC world heavyweight champion, although interestingly some of the early betting lines I have seen make Fury the favourite.

The Fury that ended the long title reign of Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015 would be a serious test for Wilder, but I am not convinced that we would see that version of Fury in December.