Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder confirm Las Vegas rematch on 22 February
The widely anticipated 22 Feburary rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury was officially announced on Friday by the promoters for both fighters.
Wilder, who has held the WBC’s version of the heavyweight championship since 2015, and Fury, who ended Wladimir Klitschko’s decade-long title reign four years ago and hasn’t lost since, will face off at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas in the main event of a rare joint pay-per-view between Fox and ESPN, the respective US broadcast partners for each.
“There’s no more ducking and diving,” Fury said in a jointly issued release confirming the long-rumored site and date. “This is unfinished business for me, but come February 22, this dosser will finally get what’s coming to him, and I can’t wait.”
The unbeaten rivals fought to a highly disputed split draw in their epic first encounter at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles a year ago, when Fury spent most of the evening frustrating the American with an effective jab and deft movement, even surviving a ninth-round knockdown to roar back in the final reel. He was dropped a second time by a violent combination in the last round, seemingly unconscious on descent, before somehow making it to his feet.
Although Fury failed in his bid to regain the world heavyweight championship he’d won from Klitschko but never lost in the ring, the career-best performance sent his stock through the roof. Indeed, Fury signed a money-spinning contract with Top Rank and ESPN on the heels of it.
While a rematch was always in the offing – and agreed to in principle as early as July in a deal that also calls for a third bout – both men took a pair of
fights in the interim.
Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs), 31, saw off a pair of fringe contenders: laying waste to Germany’s Tom Schwarz in June and outpointing Sweden’s Otto Wallin in a tougher-than-expected points win in September that saw him suffer a cut over his right eye that required 47 stitches.
Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) made his ninth and 10th defenses of the WBC heavyweight title with a sensational first-round destruction of mandatory contender Dominic Breazeale in May, followed by a seventh-round knockout in a rematch with the Cuban slugger Luis Ortiz in November.
“I’m happy and I’m excited that the rematch is finally happening,” Wilder said. “I want to give the fans what they want to see. I’ve been doing it with my last three outings – Fury, Breazeale and Ortiz. They’ve been spectacular events – from my ring walks where I gather all the energy of the people, to my uniforms that I wear to help spread that energy. Then I give them what they all come for – the knockouts, and my knockouts have been amazing. I proved myself the first time and I’m ready to do it again. It was a very controversial fight.
I promise my fans that there won’t be any controversy with this one. I’m going to finish it.
“I proved myself the first time and I’m ready to do it again. It was a very controversial fight. I promise my fans that there won’t be any controversy with this one. I’m going to finish it.”
Fury will enter the rematch having revealed a split with trainer Ben Davison earlier this month in favor of
Javan ‘Sugar’ Hill, the nephew of the late Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward.
“Tyson and myself had to make decisions which resulted in our working relationship coming to an end,” said Davison, who helped Fury shed 10 stone ahead of his first meeting with Wilder. “We remain friends and he will smash the dosser.”
at the Golden Gloves,” DiBella recalls. “It was impossible not to notice him. He was a good-looking, eloquent kid with a big smile. Patrick was not your usual prize fighter. He didn’t have to do this.”
From his pro debut in New York on 23 January 2013, Day won nine and drew one of his first 10 fights. Then, in January 2015, he faced Alantez Fox who was unbeaten in 14. Fox won a majority decision. “In my contracts, if a fighter loses, I can release him,” DiBella reveals. “It sounds cold, but it’s for the fighter’s good. Boxing is unforgiving and you can go from being a prospect to an opponent very quickly. People are hitting you in the head so it’s not healthy.
“Fox was world-class but that fight could have gone either way. So I told him: ‘Pat, I’m keeping you on.’ He won the next two but then he fought a guy meant to be an ego-boost in Brooklyn.”
Carlos Garcia Hernandez, Day’s opponent in November 2015, had a mediocre record – nine wins, 14 losses and one draw. “The guy was a journeyman but he knocked Pat out. I thought Pat should get out of boxing. He had the charisma to be a very successful working person. Some fighters I would have kept on because if you take them out of boxing they get into drugs, criminal behaviour. Pat would never do that. I figured Pat could get a job so I released him.”
That decision hurt Day and Higgins. “I was a little angry,” Higgins admits, “because Pat went for a quick knockout. In his previous fight he dropped the kid and I don’t know how he didn’t get counted out. The referee blew it. Pat still won every round. But afterwards DiBella criticised Pat, his own boxer. They made a comment like Patrick needs to hit harder. That offended Pat. Against the journeyman, he tried to knock the guy out right away. That’s never the gameplan. He learned a valuable lesson and in his remaining fights he stuck to our gameplan. He beat real competitive guys.”
As the designated B-list opponent, meant to fall at the feet of the Alist prospect, Day shocked fighters with impressive records. From April 2016 to February 2019 he won six consecutive fights against supposedly superior rivals. DiBella had re-signed him after he beat the unbeaten Eric Walker in July 2017. “Lou had just signed Walker,” Higgins remembers, “but we knew we’d beat him.”
DiBella acknowledges: “Pat and Joe didn’t quit. They won some big fights against top opposition. I had a new contract with Pat and I put him in fights that were tough but not like King Kong fights. He went on a long winning run. That made me realise: ‘I can get him another opportunity.’
“He came to see me before the
Carlos Adames fight [in late June 2019]. His mother didn’t want him to fight. His parents are highly educated. This is not a family of under-achievers struggling against poverty. Pat was a kid any father would want his daughter to come home with. He said to me: ‘I’m making $10,000 a fight. I can’t justify this to my family. You’ve got to get me bigger fights.’ I wasn’t making much money with him but I believed in him as a person. His character was impeccable. When you have that combination of character, heart and you’re good, you can go a long way. So we got him Adames.”
Adames, a punishing fighter from the Dominican Republic, had a flawless 17-0 record – but Day would make $50,000 and believed he could win. “Pat boxed well against Adames,” Higgins says. “But the kid hurt him in the final round. I saw a picture of Pat after the fight. Their arms are around each other and they’re smiling. But Patrick’s face is busted up.”
DiBella recalls: “Pat fought brilliantly. Two-thirds of the way through, it was anybody’s fight. Adames wore Pat down but it was highly competitive. It was on ESPN and afterwards Pat was very positive. Sometimes you lose and it’s solitary. But everyone was taking pictures and telling him how well he fought. I told him I wasn’t going to release him. Pat’s message was the same: ‘I don’t want a meaningless fight. I want another opportunity.’”
Higgins believed “It could have been a draw”, adding: “Brad Goodman, the Top Rank matchmaker, felt that. Pat wasn’t his guy but they all loved Patrick. Brad thought Pat could beat Charles Conwell. He felt Conwell wasn’t as good as Adames.”
Aristhene was less certain. “I saw Conwell at the 2015 Golden Gloves. He fought Cordell Booker, who’s now an undefeated professional from New York. He beat Booker convincingly. I remember telling Pat that ‘Conwell is really tough’. But Pat and myself still thought it was winnable.”
Seanie’s wife, was more worried. “I was walking around town with Beverly that Saturday,” Seanie remembers, “and we saw the wife of Joe Quiambao who used to be DiBella’s matchmaker. She and my wife have a bond, and they loved Patrick. They were like: ‘Oh, no, Pat’s fighting another fricken beast.’”
In Chicago, Day had charmed the final press conference. He praised Chicago and the other fighters. He hoped everyone would stay “healthy and in one piece”. Day then said: “People look at me and say, ‘Oh, you’re such a nice guy, well-spoken, why do you choose to box?’ But I have a fighter’s soul and I love this sport. Boxing makes me happy. That’s why I choose to do it. That’s why we’re going to go out there on Saturday and have fun.”
Higgins smiles. “If anyone was thinking of talking smack they decided right after Patrick spoke that ‘I’m not doing it’. He humbled the entire room. He made everybody love each other.”
Few people loved him as much as his best friend. Aristhene, still reeling from his ominous dream the night before, felt sick. “In my dream the bad knockout happened in the third round. So once the fight passed round three, I felt calmer, like maybe this dream won’t come true. And then, in the 10th, it happened. I hated that.
“I’ve seen guys knocked out, and put on a stretcher, but they wake up. Look at Curtis Stevens against David Lemieux. He was on a stretcher, but he put his hand up and was OK. Manny Pacquiao got put to sleep pretty hard, but I’m thinking: ‘He woke up. He was OK.’ It’s not usually the guys knocked out cold who suffer damage. It’s usually the guys beaten up round after round. Pat got dropped twice earlier but the first one he was off-balance. The second was a rough one, but he was OK. The last one was so abrupt and his head hit the canvas so hard. But it wasn’t until they said he didn’t wake up that I knew it was bad. I flew to Chicago.”
Monaghan still can’t quite believe his friend is gone. “Coach called me from hospital. He says: ‘It’s not good, man. He won’t wake up.’ It was horrible. I thought, ‘Pat’s career is over but he’s a good kid and will do something else now.’ I was sad for Pat because he loved boxing. I never thought …”
Monaghan looks up. “DiBella called me at midnight. He was freaking out: ‘Sean, the doctors say he might not make it.’ I told my wife and she gasped. Every time I spoke to Joe, there was no good news. The third Day brother was flying in from Texas. They were waiting for him and then they would switch off the machines. It makes me sick thinking about it.”
Heather Hardy , a fellow New York fighter, was also hit hard by Day’s death. On 18 October Hardy tweeted: “For 12 hours our timelines were flooded with love and prayers for Patrick Day. Now most of that is gone. I refuse to forget, or allow anyone to forget his death. I’m losing sleep … not because Pat was so close to me … but because he was me. I am him. Don’t forget him.”
I interview Hardy in Gleason’s, the famous old gym that lies in the shadow of Brooklyn bridge, and her face is lined with sweat after sparring. Hardy believes that the business of boxing, rather than the actual sport, cost Day his life. What does she mean? “An Asided fighter is the favourite. You’re the promoter’s fighter. The B-side fighter is the guy who’s not supposed to win. The only time a B-side fighter ever really wins a fight, is when they knock the A-side fighter out. I felt like I am Pat because I also went into my last fight [against Amanda Serrano] as the B-side fighter. I felt the only way I was going to win was if I knocked her out.
“It made me lose respect for how boxing treats its combatants. Patrick was just treated as somebody to make money for everybody. A stepping stone. But he was a great person. I met him in the amateurs. I believe we were on the national team together. But I was also a matchmaker at Gleason’s so I matched fights for him. I was about 29 and Pat would have been 18. But I can’t claim we were close friends. We were just fighters together. It’s different with Seanie Monaghan and Pat. They were like brothers.”
I ask Monaghan when he last saw his friend. His crumpled face brightens as he remembers Patrick dancing in a Long Beach bar. “He was dressed so nice, dancing with this white girl. He turns round and gives me the biggest smile and sweatiest hug. He was a sweetheart.”
The last time the two Patricks went out they also ended up dancing in Rockville. “We were sitting around and I said: ‘I feel like dancing,’” Aristhene recalls. “We went to this place we liked and met two beautiful girls. We danced with them and had a great night. There was no drinking. Just dancing and good conversation. After that we went home. We live on the same block so Pat dropped me off at the corner.”
Aristhene drives me back to the gym in Freeport. I tell him how Higgins had said he would miss Patrick more than ever on Christmas morning. “We live across the street from the Days and Pat and I had this Christmas tradition,” the trainer said. “We would meet in the middle of the street and I’d get my Christmas morning hug from Pat. It’s going to be hard on Christmas Day. I won’t hug Pat Day.”
New Year will be harder for Aristhene. He and Pat always spent New Year’s Eve together. “I’m going to be with his brothers this time,” Aristhene says. “We’ll remember Pat.”
Walking through the park to the gym, we feel better. The Day family and Aristhene are setting up a Patrick Day scholarship which will be supported by DiBella – with further contributions from Dazn, the sports streaming service, and Eddie Hearn, who promoted his last fight, and other boxing insiders.
“Education is everything to his family and we want to continue Pat’s legacy,” DiBella said. “What happened is heartbreaking but we can feel Pat’s impact. More has been written about health and safety in boxing the last few months than in a long time. There’ll be a kid going to college every year because of Pat. His name will live on.”
Those closest to him are badly wounded. Aristhene stresses that Pat’s mother, “who is like a second mom to me”, is “such a good person. But it’s so hard for her. There have also been days when I could hardly get up. If I was not a schoolteacher I would have quit my job. But knowing I had kids to help got me up. Pat came to the school last year and spoke to the kids. They loved him. Everything we’re doing in his name gives me positivity because, all our 27 years, he was my best friend, my brother. I had him the whole ride. So, when he passed, I had no regrets. That’s freeing.”
Inside the gym we see old photographs of Patrick boxing and smiling. We see his fight robe and his locker with his name scrawled above it. We see the ring where he and Seanie Monaghan sparred their thousand rounds. We see the corner where Joe Higgins used to wipe sweat from Patrick’s face while teaching him to become an even better fighter.
How does Aristhene feel about boxing now? “Very mixed. Boxing changed me for the better. Winning the Golden Gloves is one of my highest honours. It gave me discipline and clarity. But it’s hard for me to tell people to box now because of what happened. Boxing did a lot for Pat but it took his life. He died doing something he loved. When I’m shadow-boxing in the ring I feel good. I feel close to Pat. But then I have waves of frustration, anger, sadness at the gravity of it. Sometimes I throw punches and watch myself in the mirror. These are the movements that took his life but I know he submitted his soul to boxing.
“I had another dream about Pat the other night. I shave my head now. So when people touch my head it feels different. I felt Pat touch my head. In the dream I said: ‘What is it like?’ He said: ‘It’s nice. It’s chill with an all-knowing feeling.’ I found peace in that.”
We drive through Freeport one last time and, after all the tumult and grief, I sense that peace. I remember how, as we left the gym, Aristhene reached out and touched Pat’s locker. It was his way of saying goodbye – and a reminder that he will be back.
At Freepoint station we embrace like Coach Joe and Pat Day. “We’ll make sure his name and his legacy live on,” Aristhene says with certainty. “Patrick Day will never be forgotten.”
Education is everything to his family and we want to continue Pat’s legacy
cluding commercially, had been done. “I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to,” he said. Whereas history suggested Woods’s golf clubs could switch the narrative attached to him, his on-course performances regressed.
Woods did win tournaments in 2012 and 2013 but none of the four he covets most. With his back causing increasing degrees of problems, multiple surgeries occurred. Woods closed out 2018 with success at the Tour Championship in Atlanta amid much fanfare but there was no real indication of what might happen next.
More intriguing is that people willed it to. If individual golf is supposedly a non-tribal environment, the swell of support for Woods over the weekend of this Masters supplied the perfect counter-theory. Maybe the public decided Woods had suffered enough. Perhaps sports fans want the form of the greatest performers to be infinite. It is possible Woods, now far more personable than at his dominant peak, has switched attitudes with his own approach.
The lowest ebb was 23 months earlier. Woods – slumped, slurring and disoriented – was arrested in Florida on a driving under the influence charge. He blamed self-medication, with the intense scale of sadness for his plight notable. This may well have proved a useful line in the sand; Woods’s fortunes and quality of life sharply improved. That is poetically so, given that it was such a high-profile and embarrassing incident for an individual who has pursued privacy for decades.
Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, two players from an era inspired by Woods, led the Masters after day one. There was a five-way tie at the halfway point but Woods had, by that Friday evening, edged to within one of the quintet. The 44-year-old earned a spot in Sunday’s final grouping after a third round of 67 but to prevail he would have to break an unwanted record. Never before had Woods won a major from the position of trailing with 18 holes to play. Francesco Molinari took a two-shot lead into day four.
Molinari, the 2018 Open champion, was typically stoic until he found Rae’s Creek from the 12th tee. Augusta held its breath; this was Woods’s moment. As the Italian folded over the closing stretch, Woods completed a round of 70 to win by a shot. Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Xander Schauffele do not play top-level golf to finish second but in this instance one had the impression they were not overly upset.
“My kids got to see what it’s like to have their dad win a major championship,” Woods said. “I hope that’s something they will never forget.” They will not and they are not alone. Woods’s major No 15 preceded sudden chatter about whether or not he could match Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18. Not long before, you would have been taken to the clubhouse in a straitjacket if engaging in the same.
Even the environment was wholly appropriate. Augusta National’s shameful association with racism for so long meant Woods, now a five-times champion there, subtly laughed in the face of historical discrimination. That comfortable 1997 victory was his first in a major.
Two decades later the scale of his pain as he attended the annual Masters champions’ dinner – he was unable to compete – shocked onlookers. “I could barely walk, I couldn’t sit,” he said. “I couldn’t lay down. I really couldn’t do much of anything.”
The same evening he confided in some he thought he was “done” as a competitor. The winning of another major would always have grabbed global attention but performing this feat in Georgia, at the one of the four tournaments that never shifts venue, added sparkle to the story.
Woods’s professional exploits of 2019 concluded by captaining the USA to retaining the Presidents Cup. Footage of the celebrating American contingent on a coach as they left Royal Melbourne emerged. “No time for losers, ’cause we are the champions … of the world.” Woods sang with glass aloft. In truth, this was a stretch. But eight months earlier? He had scaled the mountain of all mountains.