LAS VEGAS – The face-off is off.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission took a cue from promoter Bob Arum, ordering that there will be no eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose pose after the weigh-in Friday for the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight rematch on ESPN/Fox pay-per-view.
About 24 hours earlier, the traditional pose for the cameras after the final news conference was eliminated after Arum shouted: “No face-off, no-face-off.’’
The risk to pay-per-view revenue for the rematch Saturday night at the MGM Grand was too big then. It would have been too big a risk Friday.
“We don’t want to screw this up by having these two guys push each other or fight each other at the weigh-in,’’ Arum said about the news first reported by ESPN.
The face-off has been a boxing tradition. But there have been incidents during the last couple of years. Gennadiy Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez shoved each other at the weigh-in before their rematch, won by Canelo on a decision Sept 15, 2018 in Las Vegas. A Terence Crawford punch narrowly missed Jose Benavidez Jr. at a weigh-in before a Crawford win by stoppage on Oct. 13, 2018 in Omaha, Nebraska.
There was shoving at the news conference Wednesday. Wilder pushed Fury, who fell back a couple of steps. Fury shoved back. Then, there was a volley of profane trash talk.
First Arum and now the Nevada Commission want to eliminate any chance of a brawl that could force a cancellation.
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