Tyson Fury feared having to pay Deontay Wilder £70million if he rejected a trilogy clash in favour of an undisputed showdown with Anthony Joshua.
The 'Gypsy King' is currently for his third meeting with the American in Las Vegas on October 9 after the bout was postponed from its original July 24 date after Fury contracted Covid-19.
And he has revealed he believed he would have to compensate Wilder if he refused to go through with the fight.
“The talk were that me and Joshua were going to fight, no contracts were signed or anything like that,” Fury said on Gary Neville’s The Overlap podcast.
“We’re in court now and he won the case, there’s not much I could do. It’s got nothing to do with the belt, it’s contracted to me. I could go like this [pretends to boot his title belt away] and we would just be fighting each other without the belt.
“Do you know how much the suing case would have been if I didn’t fight him? €80million [£68m]. This was all going on in the background and they [Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn] knew all that. All of sudden, it’s my fault.”
Fury has recently claimed that he was never optimistic of the undisputed clash with Joshua happening, and is aware that the fight needs to happen soon as the fighters continue their separate paths.
But the 33-year-old continued to defend himself and explained the detailed nature of the court case, but refused to blame his opponent.
“Then all of a sudden, Deontay Wilder has put on an arbitration against me – from a top judge and all the best lawyers in America," Fury continued. "So I can’t do anything about that.
“If you want to bring a court case against me in America, even if I haven’t done anything, I’ve got to defend it – or else I’m guilty. So I said: ‘Let’s do it.’
“So they want to go to court, they want to fight for his rematch, his contract had expired because of Covid. But fair is fair, I would want my third fight. It wasn’t really my fault or Wilder’s fault the third fight didn’t happen, the world just got turned on its head."
Fury has instead pinned a heavy blame on Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn who he believes is responsible for stopping the British pair from fighting for "ten years".
But if the pair were to face, Fury has claimed he is going to "annihilate" his rival, and has recalled a set of Instagram messages from 'AJ' threatening to do the same in the other direction.
And his potential opponent has revealed that he "needs to fight" Fury before his career is over, in order to prove himself and add one of the toughest challenges of his career to his resume.
