Category: Wilder vs. Fury II

Deontay Wilder convinced Tyson Fury nervous ahead of rematch

Deontay Wilder believes Tyson Fury is nervous because of the late knockdowns he suffered in their first fight.

Deontay Wilder hears the promises. He sees the changes. Tyson Fury is tireless, a whirlwind of talk and taunts, predictions and punch lines.

Fury has a new trainer. He says he has a plan to fight in a way that he never has. He says he will acquire power that he has never displayed. He soaks his hands in fuel. He is unconventional and often unbelievable.

But Wilder says he isn’t fooled.

Wilder sees a nervous man.

Nervous, Wilder says, about a rematch on Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand that will force Fury to again encounter power that dropped him twice 15 months ago.

“Deep down in his heart, I feel he’s nervous,’’ Wilder said Tuesday during a conference call for the Fox/ESPN pay-per-view rematch of their heavyweight draw Dec. 1, 2018 in Los Angeles. “I feel he’s very, very nervous from the first time. You knock a person out and give him a concussion, you never forget that.

“When you walk back into the ring a second time to relive that moment, it has to be stressful. You definitely can’t sleep at night.’’

Fury got up both times. He survived that power, especially in the 12th-round when he woke up and climbed back onto his feet with rare resilience.

“This time, he’s not getting up,’’ Wilder said. “I promise you that.’’

Fury, who believes he was robbed of victory on the scorecards in Los Angeles, goes into the rematch with SugarHill Steward in his corner instead of trainer Ben Davison. The change, one of many for Fury, was made because he says he wants to add punching power, especially to his right hand. Steward learned from his mentor and namesake Emanuel Steward, the late Hall of Famer who preached power was the best way to avoid a controversial decision.

But promised power suggests that Fury will be more aggressive, especially early. In fact, he predicted a second-round knockout of Wilder, whose right hand might be as powerful as any in history.

“I think it’s nervous energy from the first fight,’’ Wilder said. “He says he beat me. But he doesn’t really think that. He honestly doesn’t really believe that. That’s why he wants to change up a lot of things. If he really, really believes he beat me, he wouldn’t change so much. He changes trainers. Now, he’s putting his hands in gasoline to make them harder. He’s brought so many people into his camp. There’s so much going on it’s hard to keep up with all the changes.

“Next thing, he’s going to see a spiritual advisor to ease his mind about what’s going to happen to him and his body come Feb. 22.’’

Punching power doesn’t come from a spiritual advisor. A few weeks in the gym with a new trainer won’t produce it either, says Wilder, who was born with it.

“I’ve said it before, he has ‘pillow-esque’ fists,’’ he said. “That’s how soft they are. Maybe my adrenalin was too high. But I didn’t feel anything. Even after the fight, I didn’t feel anything. I took all his punches, the ones that he landed. Walked through them. I don’t respect none of the power he has. He’s just a tall big man who can move around the ring.

“As far as power, it’s not there.’

John Fury believes son Tyson Fury is unstoppable when he’s prepared

John Fury is so confident in his son that he was willing to bet David Haye $129,000 that Tyson Fury will beat Deontay Wilder on Feb. 22.

Do you think Tyson Fury’s father believes in him?

John Fury, a former professional boxer himself, has offered to bet David Haye £100,000 ($129,000) that his son will beat Deontay Wilder in their rematch Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The elder Fury and Haye were discussing the fight on BT Sports’ “The Debate” when Fury, who suggested Wilder would crack under pressure this time, made the offer.

Haye didn’t bite.

“I don’t like to bet,” he said. “It’s not about betting. It’s about my opinion, and my opinion is Wilder won’t crack. He’s not the cracking type of guy. I’ve never seen anything in the ring when he’s fought, and I’ve never seen anything personality-wise.

“I’ve never seen anything in sparring that suggests that he cracks under pressure. Until I see a man crack, I give the man the benefit of the doubt. Tyson Fury proved that he didn’t crack last time out”

John Fury said his son, still rebuilding after his layoff, wasn’t physically prepared for the fight with Wilder. This time, he says, the fans will see a different fighter. And a different result.

“I know this time what my son is capable of doing,” he said. “… Give him the opportunity when he’s physically and mentally, he’s unstoppable, Tyson.”

Tyson Fury admits cut will be question mark in fight with Deontay Wilder

Tyson Fury admitted he can’t judge how much risk he faces against Deontay Wilder as a result of the cut he suffered against Otto Wallin.

The bloody question persists.

Tyson Fury knows it’s coming. Only Deontay Wilder will deliver the answer on Feb. 22 in a Fox/ESPN pay-per-view rematch. The cut above Fury’s right eye has been healing for nearly five months since he needed 47 stitches for a wound sustained on Sept. 14 in a decision over Otto Wallin.

A month ago, he told Boxing Junkie that the eye was a risk. A week ago, he told Sky Sports that he couldn’t judge how much of risk it would be when the first blow lands two weeks from now.

“The eye is doing well,” Fury said. “The eye is healed up quite well. Is there any risk? I don’t know because I am not a surgeon. I am sure there will be. There is nothing much I can do about that.

“If it opens, up it opens up. It’s out of my control. There is nothing I can do about that eye opening in a fight.”

It’s not clear if Fury has a tactical plan to account for the risk. It’s not clear if there is one. He’s been working with new trainer SugarHill Steward in an attempt to add power to his punches, especially his right hand. He has talked about an early end to the heavyweight fight, predicting a knockout of Wilder within two rounds. It’s hard to know what will happen, but it’s safe to assume that Wilder will target that scar.

“Most definitely,’’ Wilder said. “I mean, that’s what you do. “I will absolutely be using that cut as a target, and I am definitely going to open it up again. I will make sure I open that one up and I’ll make sure I open a new one up, too.

“It’s going to be a bloody night for him, and all I can say to him is: ‘Buddy rest up.’ You’re going to need it, it’s going to be a long and painful night.”

 

Tyson Fury won’t risk opening cut in training camp

Number of eyes on Wilder-Fury II Super Bowl promos astronomical

An estimated 103.5 million people saw the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury II Super Bowl promo at 8:02 p.m. ET.

A Fox spokesperson provided specifics on the number of  people who saw the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury II promos during the Super Bowl LIV telecast last Sunday.

And they’re eye-popping.

Here is the estimated viewership for each spot – including Wilder’s appearance on the pre-game show – that was aired just before and during the game (all times ET):

12:56 p.m. – 3.1 million viewers
1:50 p.m. – 4.9 million
3:10 p.m. – 9.3 million
3:45 p.m. – 9.6 million
4:45 p.m. – 16.6 million
5:50 p.m. – 33.4 million
6:10 p.m. – 49.6 million
8:02 p.m. – 103.5 million
8:37 p.m. 101.0 million

To put that in perspective, consider:

  • According to Fox, the total number of viewers of boxing shows for 2019 was 35.7 million.
  • The promos generated 331million impressions throughout the day. The U.S. population is 332,639,102, according to the CIA’s The World Factbook.
  • The 8:02 p.m. figure – 103.5 million – is roughly four times higher than the average audience figure (26.5 million) for the Fox-televised Mike Tyson-Buster Mathis fight in 1995.

According to Fox, 148.5 million people watched at least part of the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20.

The Wilder-Fox fight will take place Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Fox/ESPN pay-per-view.

Good, bad, worse: Wilder-Fury was one winner on Super Bowl Sunday

Tyson Fury expects to weigh 270 pounds for Deontay Wilder rematch

Tyson Fury expects to be nearly 14 pounds heavier for his rematch with Deontay Wilder than he was for their controversial draw in 2018.

Tyson Fury and his new trainer, SugarHill Steward, continue to say the plan is to knock out Deontay Wilder in their rematch on Feb. 22. Now, Fury has added several reasons to suggest he’s serious.

Fury expects to be nearly 14 pounds heavier for the Fox/ESPN pay-per-view bout than he was for the controversial draw with Wilder about 14 months ago at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. Fury told the Bart And Hahn Show, an ESPN talk show in New York, Wednesday that he is currently at 270 pounds. He said he expects to be at that weight at opening bell.

He also posted a photo of himself on Instagram, looking fit and fight-ready. “Solid as a rock 19 stone, 270lbs coming for @bronzebomber,” he says.

For the first fight, Fury was at 256½, or 13½ pounds lighter than his projected weight for the rematch at Las Vegas MGM Grand. The additional pounds might be a sign he is trying to augment his power.

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He predicted at the first formal news conference last month for Fury-Wilder II that he would score a second-round knockout of Wilder. That one generated some predictable skepticism, straight out of Fury-being-Fury. He says a lot of things. Why would he try to counter Wilder’s singular power with power he has never shown? He’s a boxer who was ahead on the scorecards before Wilder knocked him down twice, first in the ninth round and again in the 12th.

Why not just do for 12 rounds what had worked so well for eight? Stay away and win a decision. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom. But Fury is anything but conventional. He said he fired trainer Ben Davison and hired Steward because he wants more power in his right hand. Steward’s mentor and namesake is the late Emanuel Steward, who taught power, first and foremost.

Fury, who says he was robbed in the first fight, has already said he doesn’t believe he can win a decision in the United States.

“He doesn’t want that again,’’ SugarHill Steward told iFL TV. “I don’t want it. I wasn’t raised that way. Emanuel always taught me: ‘Get the knockout.’

“That’s the only 100 percent way you know you won the fight, by taking it out of the hands of the judges. I thought Tyson did enough to win the fight, even though he was knocked down twice. I’m not mad at the decision, because I was always taught: ‘Don’t leave it in the hands of the judges.’‘’

 

Deontay Wilder’s trainer: Right wrist injury in camp was factor in Wilder-Fury I

Jay Deas, Deontay Wilder’s trainer, said a wrist injury suffered early in camp affected his timing in his first fight with Tyson Fury.

Deontay Wilder has said repeatedly that he was unable to land the big punch until late in his first fight with Tyson Fury, who went down in the ninth and 12th rounds, at least in part because he was trying too hard for the knockout.

There could’ve been a second reason.

Jay Deas, Wilder’s longtime trainer and manager, said that his fighter injured his right wrist very early in training camp for their December 2018 draw in Los Angeles. The wrist was healthy come fight time but, Deas said, the injury didn’t help Wilder in one respect.

Wilder faces Fury in a rematch on Feb. 22 in Las Vegas.

“The first time, when the fight was first announced, Deontay had really fairly severely injured his right arm and we kind of didn’t take any chances with during camp,” Deas said on The PBC Podcast. “We hit mitts and stuff instead of hitting people, not wanting to land awkwardly and reinjuring it.

“… Going into the fight he was fine but the thing that was lost was the timing. I think you saw that in Rounds 1 through 8, that the timing on the right hand wasn’t quite right. Well, there are no issues this time. So I feel really good about where we are.”

Another factor might’ve been working against Wilder: According to Deas, he didn’t eat enough in the days leading up to the fight.

Wilder weighed in at only 212½ for the first fight, 44 pounds lighter than Fury. Deas and the team don’t pay too much attention to Wilder’s weight but they would prefer that he weigh more than that.

“He was so anxious the first time he wasn’t eating enough. He’s wasn’t eating at all at times,” Deas said. “He came in at 212 and, the night of the fight, 209. By the time he knocked Fury down in the 12th round, Deontay was probably at cruiserweight (below 200).”

Wilder has been outweighed (42-0-1, 41 KOs) in all but seven of his 43 fights, the last time in 2012. His results suggest the weight isn’t important.

“We’re so used to him being outweighed,” Deas said. “It’s probably an advantage. The speed is a difference, a factor. The speed is part of the reason he can hit so hard. That power he generates does come in part from velocity.

“A 250-pound Deontay Wilder? That’s isn’t him. He’s got awkward effectiveness and unique athleticism. That probably works best when he’s 218 to 226.”

Video: Deontay Wilder: From tough kid to professional KO artist

Deontay Wilder spoke to Boxing Junkie before a press conference to promote his rematch with Tyson Fury on Feb. 22 in Las Vegas.

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Deontay Wilder discovered about two years into his professional career that he had something truly special — his power.

Of his first 12 opponents — all knockout victims — only two made it out of the first round. Indeed, the right hand was beginning to wreak havoc in a division starved for a knockout artist.

Wilder wasn’t surprised, though. He had been hurting people since he was in elementary school.

“I’ve always been strong,” Wilder told Boxing Junkie before a press conference to promote his rematch with Tyson Fury on Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on pay-per-view. “I’ve always been able to handle (myself), whether it’s street fighting or boxing.

“… I always was that guy known to (hold) his own. Deontay Wilder didn’t play around.”

Yes, Wilder engaged in many street fights growing up in a tough neighborhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And they weren’t always his idea. When you have a reputation as fighter, he said, other tough kids want to test you. Not many passed the test.

“They’ll hear stories of you,” he said, “so they’ll … want to try you.”

Deontay Wilder (left) and Tyson Fury met once again Saturday at the Fox studios to promote their Feb. 22 rematch. Michael Rosenthal / Boxing Junkie

The first person who understood that Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) was blessed with something truly unusual might’ve someone a lot closer to him than the other kids on the street — his grandmother.

“My grandmother said years ago that I was anointed by God,” he said. “She used to pick me up from school and say, ‘Maybe God is trying to use you and he can’t use you if you’re getting into trouble.

“But I never understood it, even when she said it. I never understood my greatness, I guess, because I didn’t find my purpose in life. And now that I have … this power, I know exactly how to use it.

“People get so sucked into my power. That’s all they see, they don’t see skills, they don’t see nothing else. They just want to see what they came to see, what they paid their money for, which I don’t blame them. They came to see a knockout. And I do that very well.”

The kids on the block could’ve told you that.

“A lot of people I grew up with (say), ‘You finally put that fighting to use,'” Wilder said.

That’s an understatement.

 

 

Tyson Fury on Oleksandr Usyk: ‘Why would I want to fight him?’

Tyson Fury, the U.K.’s lineal heavyweight champion, continues to dump trash talk all over Usyk, saying he would never fight the Ukrainian.

Tyson Fury is talking about three more fights, including the Deontay Wilder rematch Feb. 22, before leaving boxing and moving on to pro wrestling, or singing, or stand-up comedy, or all of the above.

Whomever he fights and whatever the undisputed multitasker does next, it looks as if Oleksandr Usyk is not a possibility. Usyk is just another Fury punch line.

Fury, the U.K.’s lineal heavyweight champion, continues to dump trash talk all over Usyk, saying he would never fight the Ukrainian.

“Usyk isn’t on the list,’’ Fury told iFL TV during a break from his Las Vegas training camp for the Wilder rematch at the MGM Grand on Fox/ESPN+ pay-per-view. “He’s a no-name. He doesn’t make any money. Why would I want to fight him for?

“He’s a small cruiserweight, a foreigner who doesn’t speak good English, and no one is really interested anyway. I want the big fights that people are interested in, and that ain’t one of them.’’

Ain’t exactly the King’s English, but there was no mistaking what Fury thinks of Usyk, who he has called “some cruiserweight bum.’’

Fury also said he wants to keep the heavyweight belts in the West, meaning the U.K. and United States. Fury, remember, traces his lineal claim back to his Nov. 2015 decision over another Ukrainian, Wladimir Klitschko, then the undisputed heavyweight champion.

After Wilder, Fury says he wants to fight Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. He was asked whether would consider Usyk if he beat Joshua.

“Still, it wouldn’t be a big fight,’’ Fury said. “It’s still a foreigner in a westernized world. The belts are back in the West, and they’re going to stay there.

“For whatever it sounds like, the heavyweight championships should be from Britain or America [and] nowhere else.’’

Sounds like a heavyweight Cold War.

Ben Davison on Tyson Fury: ‘The friendship remains’

Ben Davison said his working relationship with Tyson Fury is over but their friendship remains.

Ben Davison is Tyson Fury’s former trainer. But there’s nothing former about the friendship, he says.

Davison repeated that his friendship with Fury is as strong as ever in the wake of their surprising split last month before the Feb. 22 rematch with Deontay Wilder on Fox/ESPN+ pay-per-view was formally announced late last month.

“We had a working relationship,’’ Davison told iFL TV. “We don’t have a working relationship now. But I think everybody knew that we had a friendship and the friendship remains.’’

Fury caused a stir Monday at a news conference in Los Angeles when he said he was looking to knock out Wilder in two rounds at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

“If I wasn’t, I would have kept Ben Davison,’’ Fury said. “I’m sick of points decisions. I’ve had plenty, but I’m looking to knock him out.”

In firing Davison and hiring SugarHill Steward, Fury hopes to work on his power. Steward, a student of Kronk Gym’s late Emanuel Steward, comes from the Kronk’s school of power punching. In Los Angeles, Fury, who said he believed he could not win a decision in the United States, talked about taking out Wider with “a Tommy Hearns-like right.’’

In the U.K., Fury’s comments were interpreted as a slight directed at Davison, who was in Fury’s corner for the controversial draw with Wilder Dec. 1, 2018 at Staples Center.

“I understand Tyson’s got a hell of a lot of fans and they might want to know this, know that, but, like I say, there’s no need to go into details,’’ said Davison, who says he will be back in U.K. super middleweight Billy Joe Saunders’ corner. “The working relationship has come to an end and we’re still friends.”

Deontay Wilder: ‘That lineal BS … it ends with (Tyson Fury)’

Deontay Wilder called Tyson Fury’s claim to the lineal heavyweight championship “BS” and promised it would end on Feb. 22.

Deontay Wilder hears lineal and thinks lie.

Wilder continues to dismiss Tyson Fury’s claim on the lineal heavyweight title, which is based on Fury’s unanimous decision over then-undisputed champion Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf, Germany in November 2015.

It’s as simple as connecting dates like dots in a historical line, a lineal succession as old as the British monarchy. It’s sanctioned by history instead of an acronym. But Wilder wants to see something more tangible. He’s looking for a belt, one very much like the green one he had slung across a shoulder when he appeared at a news conference in Los Angeles this week.

“He goes around talking he has the lineal title, something that is make believe and fake,’’ said Wilder, who is three weeks into his training camp for his Feb. 22 rematch of draw with Fury more than 13 months ago. “Only belt he’s got is the one holding up his pants. That’s all he’s got. He ain’t no champion.

“Come February 22, that lineal BS, it ends. It ends with him.’’

There’s been a debate over Fury’s lineal claim. Fury relinquished his belts in 2016 amid doping charges and controversy about his erratic lifestyle. But he didn’t lose them in a fight. The line between him and his victory over Klitschko remains intact. Only a loss in the ring could break that line, turn lineal into a lie. But that loss is not there.

Fury, who promises to teach Wilder a lesson in the ring, tried to teach him a history lesson at the news conference.

“Anybody who knows anything about boxing knows that the lineal title goes back to John L. Sullivan,’’ said Fury, who comes from a long line of the bare-knuckle boxing once practiced in the U.K.

But Wilder doesn’t want to hear lessons. He only wants to see the belts.