• Steve Bunce

Fury must wait for right Price

David Price demolished Audley Harrison at the weekend © PA Photos

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David Price and Tyson Fury will fight at some stage - it's inevitable. If you read between the lines and ignore the screams and fake outrage, you'll find a very good reason why they have not met yet and why they will not meet in the immediate future: the money isn't quite right - yet.

When the bout was close to happening earlier this year, before Fury vacated his British title, the money on the table was good for two young heavyweights - but not good enough. Everybody involved realised that at the time, and everybody had a different reason for why the fight didn't happen. The bottom line was that the price was not right.

Last weekend, after Price put Audley Harrison to sleep, Price's promoter Frank Maloney issued a challenge of £500k to Fury; he went over the top with his response and the fight is no closer to happening.

The pair's TV deals - both appear on different channels - are a problem, although not one that can't be solved because, in theory, Price v Fury could generate the biggest attendance ever for a fight in the UK. If promoted the correct way, it could earn the pair of them a fortune, and get 70,000 people inside an arena. It's an outdoor fight, so needs to happen in the summer, and needs at least three months of selling.

People seem to believe Fury doesn't want to face Price, what with him handing back the British title. That's completely wrong: Fury would fight him tomorrow afternoon.

Fury knows that David Price has the moral high ground: the easy explanation for the clash not happening earlier was that Fury was scared. That's not the case. As I've said for six months, Fury is incredibly brave - too brave. The reason he vacated was that the fight made no cash sense.

But first, I expect, Fury will be hauled in front of the board for the comments he's made about Price in recent days, and will need to make an apology both to Price, the people of Liverpool, and British boxing fans. But don't expect Fury to be banned.

If he'd have made his vicious remarks in the heat of the moment at a press conference, he'd probably have got a slap on the wrist. This is different: he's had 48 hours to think about it, and he's still piling in.

Meanwhile, Price has been talking about the Klitschkos. The thing with the Ukrainian brothers at the moment is that we have to assume Vitali has very little left - maybe only one fight - and Wladimir has a handful of bouts spread over a couple of years at most. At some point, one of them will fancy Price.

The Klitschkos are masters at promoting. Price is big at the moment, but he'll only get bigger. The bigger he is, the bigger the fight will be - so they won't rush him in as a selected loser; he won't fall into the category of almost all of their challengers, who are no more than 'opponents'. Price will bring something to the table, just like Haye did.

As for Harrison, it needs to be the end of the road for him: he has nothing left to prove. He's still a young man and people like him. Look at his appearances on Strictly. He can and will carve out a TV career - a good and long one.

He needs to get himself a show on TV: a building show, a cooking show, some sort of fashion show. That's where he belongs. In five years' time we'll forget he was a boxer.

Brook no further
Kell Brook, who faces Hector Saldivia this weekend, has had six or seven fights which have been described as his last before a world-title shot. I like Kell: he's entertaining, a nice guy - but at some point he needs to look at where his career is not going. I don't know who he's going to blame for that.

Perhaps he thinks he's on track - who knows. I hope he comes through this and let's hope he gets a world-title fight sometime soon. It's about three years overdue for the King of the Eliminators.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.