Well, the final press conference announcing Saturday’s heavyweight title fight between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury certainly lived up to expectations. The two brash big men each took their turn going on lengthy soliloquies about their upcoming fight (Wilder’s consisting of mostly the same lines he always says), until Fury absolutely fried Wilder by calling him a phony.
Fury, known for his head games, went straight at Wilder’s character. He stood up, holding court for an inordinate amount of time, and recounted Wilder as a shy and timid person for 30 fights until he became the loud, outspoken fighter we’ve seen over the past couple of years. Fury went on to accuse Wilder of being a pretender, inventing his whole persona to sell tickets and create a facade to hide the person he really is — the person he plans to expose.
While all of this might seem like normal trash talk, Fury had quite the matter-of-fact disposition when doing his deep dive on Wilder’s history and image, which apparently struck a chord.
Wilder didn’t immediately flip out or anything when Fury was finished, but the mood noticeably shifted. So when the two faced-off just moments later, Wilder’s blood pressure started rising quickly, screaming right in Fury’s face and literally promising to knock him the fuck out!
With Wilder getting all animated there would obviously be some bumping and shoving going on, and wouldn’t you know it, but there was Wilder’s younger brother Marcellos again — who always seems to be in the background ready to fight somebody. Marcellos would get into a quick scuffle with a member of the Fury camp, event staff would have to separate the fighters, and then Fury took his clothes off.
Yeah.
Saturday can’t come soon enough.