PANTOMIME PUNCH-UP Fury and Wilder both take aim at Joshua after scuffle Fury v Pianeta live tonight from 7.45pm on BT Sport 1.
TySoN FuRy and Deontay Wilder scuffled in a packed hotel lobby after the Gypsy King weighed in on the eve of his second comeback fight.
Wilder flew into Belfast from the uS in time to see Fury hit the scales at what he insists is his lightest since long before his shock world heavyweight title conquest of Wladimir Klitschko.
Fury is expected to meet America’s Bronze Bomber in a super-fight, assuming he defeats Francesco Pianeta in the Windsor Park football ground tonight.
Minders held both men back from a pantomime punch-up, which erupted in the five- star Europa Hotel after Fury’s father John threatened to pre-empt his son’s impending clash by being first to beat up Wilder.
Wilder’s response to that faceto-face outburst on the stage for the weigh-in was priceless: ‘I will get my grandfather out of his grave to knock you out old man.’
Wilder also dismissed Anthony Joshua just as brusquely, saying: ‘Tyson will win here on Saturday night and then I will knock him out when we fight.
‘Joshua is old news. The new kid in town is Fury and d ours is the biggest fight.’
Fury Senior, a bareknuckle gypsy fighter in his own right, flew into a rage e when Wilder turned up and d was pulled away from the e confrontation. Wilder will be e commentating at ringside here, in anticipation of Fury winning and confirming their meeting in America this November.
Then his son sprinted from the hotel restaurant to confront Wilder after the weigh-in.
That multi-million project has focused Fury, 30 last Sunday, all the more intensely on his weight loss. He displayed his trimmed torso to a roaring audience as he scaled 18st 6lb. Team Klitschko had claimed that Fury w weighed in below 18 stone when they fought two and a half years ago but the 6ft 9in Manchester giant said: ‘Those scales were crooked. They didn’t want Klitschko fearful of fighting someone much heavier than himself. Now I really am back to my fighting weight.’
Pianeta came in only four pounds lighter. The 33-year- old Italian, let it be noted, has won 35 of his 40 fights, 21 of them by knockout. He has mixed it in good company but when it came to world-title challenges he was knocked out by Wladimir Klitschko and Ruslan Chagaev.
Pianeta will find his opponent to be not only still the unbeaten lineal champ but also in his most positive mood since he plunged into the chronic depression which provoked his long hiatus.
Fury said earlier: ‘Psychologically I’m fantastic. I’m feeling happy and relieved. I’m healthy and fit. I’m contented when I’m boxing, which has been my salvation.’
He is also switched on to the importance of this fight: ‘All eyes are on me.
‘I’ll be nervous in the dressing room and going to the ring, as everybody would be and as you would expect. This is a serious matter. Wilder and me are on collision course, which has happened quickly and is going to be an exciting story.’
With big pay-per-view deals for Wilder v Fury already in place, expect this prologue to be fairly brief.