What to Know
- Tyson Fury won his heavyweight fight Friday in Thailand when his opponent, Mariusz Wach, quit after the seventh round in the corner.
- The fight was filmed by Netflix, which had exclusive rights as part of its reality TV series with Fury, and was not broadcast live.
- Fury is now expected to face former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, if Joshua wins his fight on Saturday against Kristian Prenga in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In what was essentially a staged sparring session, former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury of England cruised through seven rounds against veteran Mariusz Wach of Poland in front of a small crowd of 1,500 at Max Muay Thai Stadium in Pattaya, Thailand.
Wach (39-14, 20 KOs), age 46 but still an active fighter, retired after the seventh round to hand the win to Fury (36-2-1, 25 KOs), age 37.
Wach stayed on his feet and never appeared seriously hurt, but essentially played the role of a human heavy bag until he’d done enough to earn his paycheck.
“Mariusz is a big tough man, 6-foot-8,” Fury said. “He hit me with some big shots.”
Fury had relocated to Thailand to train for his return against Aslanbek Makhmudov in April. He took a likiing to the country and decided to stick around to stage his fight with Wach there, with the proceeds from ticket sales going to the local community as a thank you.
Fury vs Wach Saved For Netflix
There was no live broadcast coverage of the fight permitted. Netflix had the exclusive rights to film Fury vs Wach as part of its production for Season 3 of its reality series “At Home With The Furys.” The new season will be the lead-in to the anticipated fight with Anthony Joshua later this year.
However, as expected, plenty of fight highlights immediately appeared on YouTube, like the one below.
Fury did his part against massive underdog Wach. Now the attention shifts over to Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) to defeat Kristian Prenga (20-1, 20 KOs), a bigger underdog even than Wach, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Saturday in the headliner of a DAZN PPV card.
READ MORE: Joshua vs Prenga: Blowout or Banana Peel Fight on Saturday?
“I got through my test tonight,” said Fury. “Let’s see if (Joshua) gets through his test. The biggest test of it all is how big his balls are. I think he’s a big shithouse. In Tottenham in front of 70,000 people, he never had the guts to get in the ring and face me. Let’s see if he ever does. I’m not convinced.”
In the ring, Fury said he would not travel to Saudi Arabia to sit ringside for Joshua’s fight, that his wife and family wanted him home.
But later backstage, Fury seemed to contradict himself, saying he would be on his way to Jeddah to sit ringside for Joshua’s fight with Prenga on Saturday. “I’m going, yeah. I’ll see you there ringside.”
Meanwhile, Fury had a direct message for Joshua.
“Go and suck my big Gypsy balls, tell him that, and he’s getting chinned … I want to keep going, I want to box. And if the fight’s going to be postponed till next year, I’m going to fight again and again and again. I’m not going to stay out of the ring and wait for the sausage, a big useless potato.
“I could have sat down and done fuck all for two years. It’s just a fight, like I said in there tonight. It’s the whole build-up, fight week, press conferences, weigh-ins, wrapping your hands for real, going out there and having a fight with a big man. It all builds you up for the next one.”
Location of Joshua vs Fury Still In Question
Fury and Joshua have signed contracts for a fight slated to take place in November on Netflix. But it’s far from locked in.
Hearn: “I’m telling you what the contract says. The fight must take place in the UK. Now if all of a sudden you don’t want the fight to take place in the UK, we have to change the contract and we have to renegotiate the terms,” said Matchroom Sport chairman Eddie Hearn.
Hearn said if he and his counterpart Frank Warren with Queensberry Promotions were staging the fight, it would take place at Wembley Stadium in London. Due to the involvement of Netflix and the Saudi-backed financing through Turki Alalshikh, there is an appetite to hold the fight in the United States.
“These are two British fighters, and we have a chance to produce an incredible sporting event to create a legacy for the sport in our country.” Hearn added that if it must go down in the U.S., Madison Square Garden “isn’t the worst,” but said there was a reason the location clause was inserted into the contract.
Gayle Falkenthal is an award-winning boxing journalist with more than four dozen awards for both written and video coverage from the Boxing Writers Association of America, Society of Professional Journalists, and San Diego Press Club, where she is the past president. She is the only woman journalist who is a full voting member of the BWAA. She is the Boxing Editor for NY Fights based in San Diego, California.
