LAS VEGAS – Exaggerated expectations are a sure sign of an approaching opening bell and they were there when Tyson Fury arrived at the MGM Grand on Tuesday, four days before his heavyweight rematch with Deontay Wilder.
It’s a fight in search of historical parallels. How does it compare to other legendary heavyweight bouts in the division’s fabled history?
The comparisons have gone from moderate to top of the scale. There’s nothing bigger than Ali-Frazier, a modern standard for rivalries across sports and culture.
“Me and Wilder, this has to be the biggest heavyweight fight since the 1970s,’’ Fury told reporters Tuesday after arriving at the MGM Grand. “Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier, 1971, about 50 years ago. It took a while to get another massive heavyweight fight.’’
Actually, there have been at least a couple. There was Anthony Joshua’s stoppage of Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 people at London’s Wembley Stadium in April 2017.
There was the fight that set up this rematch, the Wilder-Fury draw on Dec. 1 2018 at Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
When Wilder-Fury II was first announced, the operating parallel was Lennox Lewis’ eight-round stoppage of Mike Tyson in June 2002 in Memphis.
But there has been nothing quite like the promotional build-up for Wilder-Fury II. There were Super Bowl ads. There was a Fury appearance during the semifinals of the college football playoffs. It’s been unprecedented. You can only wonder what Frazier-Ali I, won by Frazier, would been like with the same kind of marketing.
It’s enough for Fury’s co-promoter, Bob Arum, to predict two million customers for the ESPN/Fox pay-per-view telecast. There might be some exaggeration in that projection, too. But Fury’s other co-promoter, Frank Warren, thinks it is possible.
“Look, it’s an exciting fight,’’ Warren said. “I hope that’s going to be the case. Think about it. When did you have a fight this significant? Go back, let’s say to when Lennox Lewis was fighting Mike Tyson. Tyson was shot. Lewis was the guy. Go back to when Larry Holmes fought Tyson. Holmes was shot.
“These guys are at the top of their game. This is the best fighting the best today. It’s not the past fighting the new guy.’’