David Price to fight Sam Sexton for vacant championship belts
After much speculation, purse bids and counter offers, the dream heavyweight matchup between Tyson Fury and David Price is off. 45 minutes before the British Boxing Board of Control's deadline for bids on Wednesday, Fury announced that he was vacating the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles he had won by beating Derek Chisora on points in July of last year. Fury claims that the Price camp turned down an offer of £100,000 from his promoter Mick Hennessy earlier in the week.
In a statement to the press, Fury said:
''It's been an honor to have won and held both the British and Commonwealth titles, but as I am now no.7 in the world [WBC rankings] is time to move on. If Price really believed he could beat me the smart move in my opinion would have been to take the great payday that was offered by my promoted to appear on terrestrial TV.''
Fury went on: ''I'm really excited about my future plans as I'm doing things differently and currently training like a Trojan in pursuit of becoming heavyweight champion of the world.''
It appears that Price's promoter Frank Maloney was prepared to make a more lucrative offer that would've taken the fight to a rival TV channel, and Hennessy alluded to as much when he said:
''Fury has vacated his titles in pursuit of being a household name on his journey to become a heavyweight world champion. We have a great schedule in place for Tyson on Channel 5 and I'm not prepared to have that affected by other promoters, purse bids and titles. Fury v Price was a quality fight and in my opinion it should go out to the widest possible audience. That's why I offered £100,000, which unfortunately was rejected by his promoter Frank Maloney on Monday.''
While Fury has admitted that he is not ready to face either WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko or his brother WBA/IBF/WBO boss Wladimir, he has stated that he feels he has the beating of WBA regular heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin, who defends his version of the title against WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck in Germany on February 25.
It is therefore a strong possibility that after a couple more tuneup fights, Fury could be looking to meet the winner of Povetkin v Huck later in the year.
Meanwhile the hottest heavyweight in Britain - David Price will take on former Commonwealth champion Sam Sexton for the vacant British and Commonwealth title belts. 6'8" Price is in sensational form, and demolished the dangerous and durable John McDermott in just 74 seconds last month. McDermott had previously given Fury two nightmare fights for the English heavyweight title - losing the first on a controversial points decision and going ahead in the rematch before being stopped in the ninth round.
27 year old Sexton twice went into the cauldron that is the Odyssey Arena in Belfast to defeat local idol Martin Rogan, and his only setbacks have been two stoppage losses in close fights against Derek Chisora.
On the subject of Fury, Price said:
"I'm disappointed he didn't step up to the plate because it was the fight the public wanted to see. I was talking to my trainer and I think Sam Sexton is going to prove more difficult to beat than Fury because he moves his feet better and has quicker hands. Tyson Fury's been struggling and if you are talking about moving up in class then he's going to get found out. Had I fought Fury it would have been an early night's work for me because he leaves himself wide open.''
Price's manager Frank Maloney, who guided Lennox Lewis to the world heavyweight title in 1992 said:
''What he [Fury] is doing is a disgrace to himself and a disgrace to boxing. We were offered £100,000 but knew the fight is worth more than that so we let it go to purse bids. And I can guarantee you Fury would have earned the biggest payday of his career from the purse bids.''
On the subject of Price v Sexton he said:
''I believe he [Price] will win. He is the most exciting British fighter since Lennox Lewis.''
