Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury will make his pro wrestling debut this week when he takes on Braun Strowman at the Crown Jewel event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday. The match’s announcement led many to wonder about the “Gypsy King’s” future in combat sports, given that he’s still got a championship rematch against Deontay Wilder set for February. However in a new interview with The Daily Telegraph, Fury made it clear that his wrestling match was a one-time deal.
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“It is back to boxing. Never say never, but I’ve got nothing planned for the future with wrestling,” Fury said. Elsewhere in the interview the six-foot-nine champion said he’s thoroughly enjoyed stepping inside the world of pro wrestling with his handful of Raw and SmackDown appearances.
“It’s taken my mind off boxing completely,” he said. “I wouldn’t be in training camp at the moment, anyway. But it gives me something to do. I didn’t want October and November off. I knew this would be a month-long job and I knew I would be busy.”
Ironically in a separate interview on Sky Sports on Sunday, Fury teased the idea of moving over to the world of mixed martial arts.
“Who knows? I have got something big coming up after this, even bigger than this,” Fury said while at Wembley Stadium for an NFL game between the Rams and Bengals. “We might see Tyson Fury have his MMA (mixed martial arts) debut this year. Tyson Fury is taking over.”
Fury is reportedly making approximately $15 million for his match with Strowman. The feud between the two kicked off during Friday Night SmackDown’s premiere on FOX in early October when “The Monster Among Men” tossed Dolph Ziggler onto Fury in the front row of the crowd. He admitted in an interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani that the match’s announcement angered English boxing promoter Frank Warren.
“He said ‘I think this is a really bad idea’. Frank along with everyone else in my team was like ‘concentrate on your job, you are not a showman or a movie star’,” Fury said. “He said you could get injured and what happens if the cut re-opens or if you get injured shoulders.
“If we lived our lives on ‘what if’ we would never do anything,” he added. “These are once in a lifetime opportunities.”
Other headling matches for Crown Jewel include a 10-man Team Hogan vs. Team Flair tag match, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez and WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt in a Falls Count Anywhere match.
