Queensberry Promotions shatters purse bid record to secure Fury-Whyte rights

Heavyweight title fight penciled in for April 23 in U.K.

Jan 28, 2022

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Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions won the WBC purse bid on Friday to secure the promotional rights for heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s mandatory defense against interim titleholder Dillian Whyte with a record-shattering offer of $41,025,000.

The Queensberry bid, submitted on the Zoom video conference by George Warren, Frank’s son, and in conjunction with Fury co-promoter Top Rank, blew away the only other bid of $32,222,222 made by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.

Both of those bids were the two highest offers ever made in a boxing purse bid. The previous record was $32.1 million bid by The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to secure the promotional rights for the October 1990 undisputed heavyweight championship fight between then-champion Buster Douglas and mandatory challenger Evander Holyfield. That bid beat an offer of $29,101,000 made by Main Events.

Top Rank chairman Bob Arum told Fight Freaks Unite the date penciled in for Fury-Whyte is April 23 and that the fight, which matches two Brits, will take place at a stadium in the United Kingdom.

Arum said the fight will be broadcast as an ESPN PPV event in the United States. It will be a BT Sport pay-per-view in the United Kingdom.

The WBC will hold 10 percent of the winning bid — $4,102,500 — and it will go the winner of the fight.

Of the remaining 90 percent of the money, Fury is entitled to 80 percent — $29,538,000 — although it is likely he had a pre-arranged deal with his promoters for a guarantee less that so they could bid a high enough amount to make sure Whyte takes the fight. Whyte is due 20 percent, a career-high $7,384,500. Whyte, however, remains in arbitration with the WBC in an effort to get a larger percentage of the money. Twenty percent for a mandatory challenger or interim titleholder is far less than what the WBC usually assigns.

“We had a good arrangement with Tyson. He was adamant that he only wanted to fight for Frank and ourselves (Top Rank) and he wanted to come home to the U.K. to do the fight and we produced for him,” Arum said. “Eddie made a tremendously high bid on behalf of DAZN (his broadcaster) and so we’re very happy that the fight is going to be coming off in April.”

Fury was thrilled with the bid outcome.

“Very happy guys. Purse bids! Big GK (Gypsy King) is coming home,” Fury said in a brief video posted to social media after the purse bid. “Coming home! I’m coming home! I cannot wait. Me and Dillian are gonna put it on the line.”

Fury has had his last five fights in a row in the United States (four in Las Vegas, one in Los Angeles) and has not fought in the U.K. since a 10-round decision win over Francesco Pianeta in August 2018 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

On Thursday, in anticipation of the purse bid, Fury also posted a video, to explain his excitement for the bout.

“I can't wait to punch Dillian Whyte's face right in, mate,” Fury said. “I’m going to give him the best hiding he's ever had in his life, boy! Dillian Whyte, train hard, sucker, because you're getting annihilated, bum!”

The purse bid was delayed several times for various reasons until the WBC on Wednesday morning, hours before it was to have taken place, announced that the two sides had asked for another postponement. The WBC granted what it called a “final extension” and rescheduled it for Friday, when participants gathered via video conference for the bids to be unsealed.

Among those on the video conference, according to a source with knowledge of the participants, were George Warren; WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman; Top Rank executives Brad Jacobs and Carl Moretti; Top Rank attorney Jeremy Koegel; Matchroom Boxing CEO Frank Smith; Matchroom Boxing attorney Shaun Palmer; and Bob Yalen, the CEO of MTK Global, which manages Fury.

Queensberry has seven days to send the contracts to both fighters and 21 days to return signed agreements to the WBC.

Behind the scenes there had been efforts in recent weeks to finalize an undisputed championship fight between Fury and three-belt titleholder Oleksandr Usyk to take place in the spring in Saudi Arabia with a Saudi group bankrolling the fight and willing to fund step-aside deals that would have seen former titleholder Anthony Joshua accept upwards of $20 million to give up his right to an immediate rematch with Usyk, who took the belts from him by unanimous decision in September, and for Whyte to receive several million dollars to allow Fury to bypass the due mandatory defense and then step aside again for another fee to allow the Fury-Usyk winner to fight Joshua.

In the end, the extremely complicated deal fell apart this week and Fury instead turned his attention to facing Whyte in what figures to be perhaps the biggest all-British heavyweight title fight. Usyk will next likely face Joshua in their rematch, also this spring.

Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs), 33, is coming off a dramatic 11th-round knockout of former titleholder Deontay Wilder in their third fight on Oct. 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It was the consensus 2021 fight of the year in which Wilder got knocked down three times and Fury twice.

In his most recent fight, last March 27, Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), 34, knocked out Alexander Povetkin and sent him into retirement as Whyte regained the interim belt he had shockingly lost by one-punch fifth-round knockout in a fight in which he had scored two knockdowns and otherwise dominated in August 2020.

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Queensberry Promotions shatters purse bid record to secure Fury-Whyte rights

Heavyweight title fight penciled in for April 23 in U.K.

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