WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has said he has "moved on" from his proposed third fight with Deontay Wilder.
The 32-year-old Briton had been set to fight Wilder on Dec. 19, but in recent weeks promoters Bob Arum and Frank Warren have made it clear that putting on the event this year is extremely unlikely, if not impossible now.
Now it seems that Fury has elected to stop entertaining the idea of a third fight for the foreseeable future, blaming Wilder’s camp for repeatedly asking for date changes, and suggesting they were running scared from another fight.
Speaking to The Athletic, Fury said: “I was looking forward to smashing Wilder again. A quick and easy fight.
“But Wilder and his team were messing around with the date. They don’t really want to fight the lineal heavyweight champion. They know how it ends. The world knows how it will end: with Wilder on his ass again.”
Fury went on to state that the fight has twice been pushed back before the latest setback, first in July and then in October.
There have been rumours suggesting that Wilder is nursing a longstanding bicep problem which has been treated with surgery.
“Then they asked me if I would agree to push it to December. I agreed to Dec. 19,” Fury claimed.
“Then they tried to change the date again into next year. I’ve been training. I’m ready. When they tried moving off Dec. 19 and pushing to next year, enough was enough. I’ve moved on.”
Warren has suggested he will attempt to find a new opponent next month for his boxer, with the report floating a Dec. 5 date.
The decision to move on from Wilder does not rule out a future third fight eventually, with Fury saying he would give Wilder the chance to “win a few fights” before setting a new date.
Anthony Joshua is set to face Fury in 2021 as the pair look to unify their respective titles. First Joshua will face Kubrat Pulev in a mandatory defence of his IBF belt, likely in December.