Fury v Wilder II: Fighters unveil bulked-up physiques on eve of rematch
There was a time when Deontay Wilder would have been one of his country’s most famous sportsmen, which makes the 34-year-old among the biggest casualties of boxing’s retreat toward the margins of the American mainstream.
There is no good reason why Wilder, a crowd-pleasing knockout merchant in a chiselled 6ft 7in package who is unbeaten in 43 professional fights, with 41 wins inside the distance, should not be a household name by now. He has made 10 heavyweight title defences in the five years since winning the WBC’s version of the championship, one more than Mike Tyson and Joe Frazier in their reigns.
So why has it not happened? Some of it is down to boxing’s decision to throw itself behind a paywall amid an explosion of entertainment alternatives. Some can be attributed to the emergence of four sanctioning bodies, an alphabet soup that has fractured a championship that was once handed over cleanly from one to the next. A bit more can be chalked up to plain old lousy promotion.
Mainly, though, it is down to competition. Specifically, Wilder’s lack of a bigname rival as a yardstick of how good he really may be. In Tyson Fury, he has found one. This very odd couple will come together for the second time in 15
months on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where they faced off one final time at Friday afternoon’s weigh-ins.
The impeccably fit Wilder came in at a career-high 231lb and Fury tipped the scales at 273lb before a rollicking capacity crowd squarely behind the challenger, the latest nod to the American’s baffling domestic conundrum. Fury has been open about his intent to pack on ballast for the rematch, eating six meals and drinking eight litres of water daily in search of a size advantage against the lighter American. It’s a bold tactic for a fighter who weighed 256½lb in their first encounter and in the same range for interim bouts against Tom Schwarz (263lb) and Otto Wallin (254½lbs), yet the 42lb weight difference on Saturday night will be two pounds less than when they fought in December 2018.
Afterward, both fighters pointed and barked at one another from a distance for two minutes rather than come together for the traditional staredown, which the Nevada Athletic Commission banned following the shoving match at Wednesday’s final press conference. “I just told him, ‘24 hours, 24 hours,’” Wilder said. “He’s nervous. Nervous energy as always.”
When the waiting is over the two unbeaten giants with 71 professional wins between them, the two best fighters currently in boxing’s prestige division, will meet in the most important heavyweight championship fight since the second fight between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield in 1999. The bigfight atmosphere on the Las Vegas strip has offered a throwback to those days: Fans queued outside the arena since early Friday morning to catch a brief glimpse of Wilder and Fury on the scales, with the state fire marshal locking down all entrances due to the excessive crowds at least an hour before it started.
With a win, Wilder will take his first step into the discussion of the alltime great heavyweights. Make no mistake: this is a legacy-defining fight on both sides. Should the Gypsy King win back the title, it is not hyperbolic to say it would complete one of the greatest comebacks in modern sporting history given the depths of his very public bout with addiction and mental illness, which saw him balloon to nearly 25st during a 31-month layoff.
But Fury, who did not make a single defence of the IBF, WBA and WBO titles he won from Wladimir Klitschko, says he plans to fight only three more times even if he wins on Saturday night. For Wilder, the sky is the limit. He has already been called the biggest puncher in the history of boxing (with apologies to Ron Lyle and Earnie Shavers), but at the moment, his career-best win is against the Cuban veteran Luis Ortiz. Until he adds a top-flight name like Fury to his ledger, it is all barroom theory.
Wilder must solve the enigma who left him looking ordinary for long stretches of their first meeting in downtown Los Angeles, when the 6ft 9in Fury spent most of the evening racking up points and using every trick in the book to negate Wilder’s heat-seeking right hand. The American finally scored a knockdown in the ninth round and an even heavier one in the 12th, which left Fury seemingly unconscious on the way down, but the challenger somehow made it to his feet and to the final bell, where the ringside judges handed down a stalemate.
But, rather than go into an immediate rematch, each took a pair of fights in the interim.
“Round 12 has been on his mind since day one,” Wilder said this week. “That’s why he stayed away from the [immediate] rematch. Round 12 has been living in his head for a while.”
Fury has made no secret of his intention to go for a knockout in Saturday’s fight, even if the tactics fly in the face of conventional wisdom. But Wilder, on several occasions during the final run-up, has said he does not believe a word that comes out of the challenger’s mouth.
“I’m not worried too much about what he says, I just want to see what he does,” Wilder said. “I am a man of action.”
Should Wilder win, all conversation will turn to a unification showdown with Britain’s Anthony Joshua, who holds the other three belts in boxing’s prestige division. That could mean an opportunity to crown the first undisputed world heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 2000. Regardless, “I just want to let the world know that we have a badass named Deontay Wilder here in America, and he ain’t going nowhere for a very long time,” Wilder said.
repurposed outrage inspires an excellent team to become even better – what better way to stick it up Uefa than by winning the Champions League? – but equally possible that righteous indignation becomes distracting. With, er, all due respect to West Ham, a home game against them was unlikely to be revealing, but a visit to Leicester – without a league win over anyone but West Ham since New Year’s Day – will show us plenty about their immediate prospects. DH
• Leicester City v Manchester City (Saturday, 5.30pm)
6) Saints seek return to winning ways
There are few portents more troubling for a team than home defeat to West Ham, and that is exactly what happened to Southampton in midDecember to leave them third-bottom. But since then they have been superb, winning at Villa, Chelsea, Leicester and Palace as well as beating Spurs at home, a run which has taken them 12th. Nevertheless they remain just seven points above the relegation zone and they have now gone a month without a win. In Aston Villa, they will find a team not only desperate for points, but one fluid enough to pick the spaces in Southampton’s 4-2-2-2 formation. Saints have lost eight home games so far this season, more than any team in the league, and Ralph Hasenhüttl said this week that the pressure created by the crowd is difficult for his players. This was not wise, because if you offer people an excuse, there’s every chance they will accept it. He and they must acknowledge that no one is responsible for performances, apart from him and them. DH
• Southampton v Aston Villa (Saturday, 3pm)
7) Burnley begins tough schedule for Bournemouth
Twelve games left, and Bournemouth are two places and two points outside the bottom three. They have played six of their last seven games against the other members of the bottom six, a run which featured two wins and five defeats, and with their remaining matches including fixtures against eight of the top nine and none of the strugglers. Burnley, on the other hand, still have to play seven of the bottom eight and though they remain – on goal difference – in the bottom half they are just two points off eighth, five from sixth, and their main problem at the moment seems to be in keeping down talk of another European campaign. In Matej Vydra they have a striker who brought a miserable personal run to an end at Southampton last Saturday, his winner meaning he took part in a league victory for the first time this season – at the seventh attempt. SB
• Burnley v Bournemouth (Saturday, 3pm)
8) Norwich need Buendia for Wolves test
Wolves remainpoised for a tilt at the top four although it is worth pointing out that, since beating Manchester City in December, they have only won once in seven top-flight games. Norwich’s porous defence offers hope that they will put that right, and there is also the fact that Sunday’s visitors desperately require points. Daniel Farke’s team can hardly be accused of not “going for it” and it is hard to think of a more enterprising side that has languished seven points shy of safety at this stage. Their strength is to go hell for leather and that is why, having benched him for the last two games, Farke needs to recall Emi Buendia. The Argentinian can frustrate defensively but his creative gifts are impossible to ignore: he is a chancecreating machine, most measures placing him comfortably in the division’s top five, and it is hardly his fault that teammates tend to miss a fair chunk of them. It is no exaggeration to say Buendia can weight a through-ball as well as anybody; the shackles need to come off now and give Norwich hope of an unlikely escape – even if it also gives Wolves a greater chance of ending their mini barren run. NA
• Wolves v Norwich (Sunday, 2pm)
9) Blades stunner not out of the question
To praise Sheffield United is now cliché, and there is no greater praise than that. So, rather than look at what they have done, it is incumbent upon us to look at what they can do: qualify for the Champions League. Currently, they lie sixth, two points off fourth, and the teams immediately above them meet on Saturday. Nor is that all. Chelsea are struggling; Spurs, who’ve been sneaking results despite themselves, will be without their two best players until the end of season; and so might Manchester United, who sit immediately below them. Which is to say that if Blades remain focused through a run-in that is far from daunting, they have every chance of securing the top-four or top-five finish that would not only rank as one of the great achievements of the Premier League era, but would restore some faith in its legitimacy as a concept. DH
• Sheffield United v Brighton (Saturday, 3pm)
10) Hammers to release
David Moyes was not wrong to point out, after West Ham’s passive 2-0 defeat at Manchester City, that goal difference could be decisive in the relegation battle. There is little to separate the teams placed between 16th and 19th, in particular, using that metric so it is certainly some consolation that the Hammers avoided a thrashing. But what if they had a bit of a go and asked questions of a side that could have been forgiven for feeling a little distracted? Points are what really matter and Moyes’s side are running out of opportunities. How will they meet the challenge of silencing Anfield by ending Liverpool’s pretensions to domestic invincibility? Realistically we can expect more of the same but it would be refreshing if West Ham decided to test their opponents’ nerve. The title may effectively be sewn up but the pressure to finish undefeated, and perhaps be the best top-flight side of all time, might start playing on the hosts’ minds as the prospect approaches. Liverpool have been far from their best over the past two games, so a competent opponent could yet end the dream. NA
• Liverpool v West Ham (Monday, 8pm)
was not easy. But I knew if I wanted to be a better player and move to the next step in my career I had to start.”
Lewandowski almost linked up with another managerial great in 2012. “Sir Alex Ferguson,” he says. “I was speaking with him after two years at
Dortmund and at that time I was really thinking about a move to Manchester United. Because of Ferguson and because of Manchester United. Borussia Dortmund said: ‘No, that’s that.’ That was the first time I was thinking about the move because if you get a phone call from Sir Alex Ferguson, for a young player it was something amazing. That was a special day for me.”
Speculation about joining Madrid has died down. Lewandowski is settled at Bayern but he is still looking to add extra layers to his game. “I want to play for a long time,” he says. “I don’t feel 31 years old and everything I am doing now is working to keep me in top for the next five, six years. I don’t want to be a striker who spends 90 minutes in the box waiting for the ball. I don’t like just getting the ball 10 times during a game. It’s not enough for me; I find those games difficult.
“Sometimes you have to be there waiting for the ball and if you get it once in the 90 minutes you have to be ready. But I say: ‘I want to be part of the team, of the game, I want to move and pass and not just wait for the ball.’ That’s why I am always looking for space to get the ball and find my teammates. I can work on everything still. But one thing? Maybe to shoot from distance.”