The marketing for this fight has been badly thought out and is actually a bit strange. I'm a huge Fury fan, but they're totally overdoing the mental health stuff now - it's great to see him back etc, but Ben Davison basically said because of Fury's mental health work, people like Hearn shouldn't be too critical of him. That's just silly. Wheeling out Bob Arum (who says all the wrong things for a UK audience including how the fights won't happen until the end of 2020) is also a bad move. UK fans in particular hate all the corporate waffle, hate being patronised by Arum saying all the big fights happen in the US etc.. he's out of touch, speaks badly and says little of any interest. People also aren't particularly interested in Fury harping on about the fight being in the US. Everyone knows that Vegas is a huge boxing city - but it's also on the other side of the world. UK fans don't really care. I know Fury probably stands to make lots of money personally from this ESPN deal, and good luck to him. But I feel the goodwill he built up slowly evaporating. Unanimously, whether that's people on here or a casual audience, there seems to be very little appetite for this fight. People only really want to see Wilder/Fury/Joshua fight eachother in any order. His interviews to IFL have been prickly and odd - for the first time he's getting more 'dislikes' on those videos than 'likes' which isn't a good sign seeing as Fury videos on there are usually very popular. Hearn must be delighted at this - I feel, after the Wilder fight, public opinion was swinging slightly in Fury's favour over Joshua - I don't think that's the case anymore.
That's because its clear as day now that Fury and Wilder are the ones ducking Joshua. Fury will have a few more low level fights then retire a rich man, he has no interest in fighting Joshua, probably as he knows Joshua would be too much for him to handle
Won't be watching and very disappointed in this. Paying for a fight at 5am in the morning needs it to be a superfight. I think BT/Frank have got a little bit carried with the BOOM of Fury's return. The initial comeback fight was always going to draw a decent crowd and PPV audience, then fighting Wilder in a super fight will cause a boom. But what has give them the idea that Fury fighting an absolute nobody is PPV worthy... I really want to find out the logic!
My guess, Fury and his advisors have an exaggerated idea of his popularity, such that he wants a lot of money from BT sport for the fight to air on their channel. The channel want him on there but don't want to pay the money so they offer him a split of PPV instead. That reduces their risk, they may not make much money but they're not exposed by a big upfront payment to Tyson for a dog**** fight.
Will you stop going on about promoting & marketing the fight. Look, Frank Warren needs to get at BT and make sure they advertise the PPV during Chelsea vs Arsenal Europa League Final & Tottenham vs Liverpool Champions League Final - don't forget they stream on the BT YouTube channel both games. - that's how you create a buzz and get people talking especially those watching at the pubs - few ads in the papers is a must.
But where are they getting this idea of popularity from? The Wilder fight wasn't the big box office event some suggested it would be. His biggest fight on domestic TV was well beaten in terms of viewers not just by Joshua but the likes of Haye and Usyk. We all know he has his fans but his style doesn't make lots of people eager to see him. Nobody can possibly think this will be popular enough to not be a disaster.
According to Fury it's on the same level of Wilder vs Brazil and Joshua vs Ruiz Jr. That's why it's on PPV. I wonder if even one single real boxfan believes that bull.
To be fair, he's got a point. The average punter doesn't know who Ruiz Jr is, and would only remember Breazeale as someone Joshua easily beat up and wiped out. Schwarz isn't rated by real boxing fans but neither was Breazeale . If Schwarz folds like a De Mori he'll stay unrated by us .... but if he turns out to be half decent, a different story. Ruiz Jr. is the most credible one there, and look at the ****ing state of him ! If anyone buys theses PPVs it is certainly not for any of the opponents !
The problem is Fury in a PPV sense isn't anywhere near the level of Joshua. He'd like to be, and he can say he is, but he just isn't. You can't self identify as popular when you're obviously not.
He is popular, he’s just not fighting anyone big enough to generate huge viewing figures. People need to get over the fact that he’s having a couple of ‘easier’ fights, before one or two big ones before he retires (at which point Arum will cash in on his investment).
Well, if thousands (or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of people are willing to spend money to watch him fight, and millions of others are keen to see or hear about his fight afterwards, and he gets a whole load of coverage and views in newspapers and websites, then he's popular by a reasonable definition. Being "nowhere near the level of Joshua" in PPV is really just a matter for his bank account. Less people will pay, so he'll make less money. None of our concern really. It's like saying Radiohead were never a popular band because they don't sell as many records as ..... errr, let's say, The Beatles ..... You're always (usually) first to tell us that any fight is justified as PPV as long as it sells PPVs to satisfy the fighters and promoters. No other requirement necessary. Or is that just something you say about SKY/Matchroom PPVs ?
I absolutely believe a fight being 'worthy' of being on PPV is purely a business decision. If Joshua v Wilder was realistically going to do a handful of buys but Mayweather v Piers Morgan would break all records then I can absolutely understand why the latter would be on PPV. My point with this fight is that it will obviously sell terribly and therefore I fail to understand the logic behind the decision to charge extra for it. Like any product, if people think it's average to useless, hiking the price largely won't get them buying in bigger numbers.
Hawl, OpinionOfACasual. Remember when AJ was ducking Wilder and you claimed there is nothing to suggest that the Wilder fight does more buys than the Parker fight? Hahaha.
