Cruiserweight contender Viddal Riley has lashed out at Tommy Fury over his recent statements with respect to a potential future fight.
Fury, the younger brother of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, picked up the biggest win of his career back in February, when he traveled to the Middle East to win an eight round decision over social media star turned boxer, Jake Paul.
In a recent interview, Fury explained that Riley was not a big enough name to entice a fight.
Fury prefers to collide with another social media celebrity who turned to boxing – KSI.
“No disrespect but Viddal’s fighting a lot lower than me. Say what you want about opposition but I’m fighting on a world championship level. I’m doing millions of pay-per-view buys with all these big names. I’m not going to be foolish and drop down and fight Viddal Riley in York Hall, am I? At the end of the day, all due respect to him but he’s not a big enough draw,” Fury told Sky Sports.
“At the end of the day, Viddal, who is he outside of boxing? He’s not really anybody. He’s got no global pulling power. He can’t do any pay-per-views.”
Riley recently returned to the ring and knocked out Anees Taj at York Hall in London.
He explained that Paul is not the big star that he believes to be – and is simply making excuses not to fight each other.
“If he doesn’t want to fight, just say he doesn’t want to fight. He’s in a sticky position: he’s chosen that side of things, getting paid extremely well. Just say you’re that guy now, say you’re a crossover boxer,” Riley said to Sky Sports.
“That’s it, that’s all Tommy has to do. All he has to say is: ‘You know what, I’m a crossover guy now, I don’t really have any interest in the traditional path, I’m not looking to be a traditional pro boxer,’ and I’ll leave him alone. But if you’re going to try and blur the lines between the two, then blur the line over here. He doesn’t have to blur the line here. He doesn’t have any pull himself anyway. Jake has the pull. KSI has the pull. Go check the views on any of his fights when he’s fighting in that realm, and then check mine, and I’ve stayed in this realm and, I would say I have more pull than he does.
“Anees Taj would knock out Tommy Fury. Let’s not play games now. I think Anees Taj would knock out Tommy Fury. I’d like to see Tommy prove himself against an opponent like that, and see if he can deal with them. I doubt he can.”