Huge blows, huge heart, classic bout
Fury-wilder III historic crowd pleaser
There was something about the way Deontay Wilder fell.
His heart had carried him through 10 rounds with
WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Through two knockdowns and consistent punishment, the clubbing, thudding right hands from his 277-pound foe had been landing for a while.
His eyes shut when the punch landed. His arm, reaching out, trying to grab ahold of the ropes. But his body was falling. Crashing, face first, into the canvas. Referee Russell Mora stopped the fight instantly.
It was the final act of an alltime classic heavyweight title fight. The kind of fight that will be talked about 30 years from now. Fury, the best heavyweight in the world, yet again marched right into the scariest place in all of sports and came out a champion.
“Me and Wilder’s saga is done now,” Fury said. “Done for good.”
It’s hard to imagine a much more definitive ending to a heavyweight trilogy that will go down as one of the best in boxing history. The final score: Five knockdowns for Fury (310-1, 22 knockouts), four for Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOS).
Two wins for Fury, none for Wilder, one controversial draw.
It was Wilder who came out with the plan, carefully crafted by his new trainer, Malik Scott, after he was so badly overrun last year in their second fight. He jabbed at Fury’s fleshy midsection like his life depended on it, winning the first round on activity.
But Mike Tyson famously said it best: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
That happened in the third round, when Fury dropped him with one of those clubbing right hands. But Wilder had a backup plan this time and, seemingly out of nowhere, he turned the tides on Fury in the next frame, knocking him down twice.
Fury, though, has made a career out of overcoming adversity. He rose, cleared the cobwebs and took back control of the fight.
“Nothing’s ever going to be easy,” Fury said. “If you want something that’s very hard to get, you’ve got to sacrifice and dedicate and keep pushing, no matter what. And never let anybody tell you you can’t.”
This is a sport that is so often about what’s next. And yet it felt almost sacrilegious on Saturday night to think about whether Fury will get a chance to unify his title with Oleksandr Usyk or if he’ll face the Dillian Whyte-otto Wallin winner.
For one night, at least, the story was only about one moment.
Wilder falling, and Fury standing over him.
The crowd erupting — some rooting for Fury, some rooting for Wilder, most just yelling because that’s what the moment called for.
Both men took horrific punishment to get to that point. Wilder’s legs were unsteady for several rounds. Fury had been clipped throughout the fight by punches that have crippled so many 250-pound men.
“I did my best, but it wasn’t good enough,” Wilder said in a quote sent out by a publicist. “I’m not sure what happened.”
Wilder left the fight and went to the hospital. Fury appeared, shirtless, with the WBC belt strapped around his waist at the post-fight press conference to celebrate yet another signature victory.
“He took a lot of punishment tonight, Deontay Wilder, and that puts a lot of mileage on the clock,” Fury said.
Then he paused for a millisecond.
“So did I.”