Tyson Fury angrily ripped off his shirt and looked like he wanted to throw blows with Deontay Wilder during the final press conference on Wednesday for their fight this Saturday night.
(Photo credit:Esther Lin/SHOWTIME)
Things were pretty calm between the two giants until the face off at the end of the press conference. At that point, Wilder started letting Fury have it verbally, telling him what he’s going to do to him on Saturday night when he gets him inside the ring.
Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) arguably started the scuffle by trash talking Fury at full volume, shouting in his face and telling him how he was going to whip his backside on Saturday. Fury took the abuse calmly at first, trying to laugh it off and pretend that Wilder’s words were’t bothering him, but finally he could take it no longer and ripped his shirt off.
Fury ripping off his shirt and doing a lot of finger pointing was probably the highlight of the entire press conference. During the actual speaking part of the press conference, both guys were saying the same stuff they’d already been saying all along. It sounded like they were trying to hype the fight as best as they could, but they didn’t have anything new to say. The boxing fans have already decided whether they want to pay to see the contest on Showtime PPV or not by this point. The scuffle during today’s final press conference will likely do little to get boxing fans that have been sitting on the fence to want to purchase it. Fury is still going to be at a disadvantage on Saturday night no matter what took place today. Fury has been out of the ring for close to two years, and you can’t count his two comeback fights against Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta as adequate preparation to get him ready for what he’s going to be dealing with against Wilder on Saturday.
The good news is there weren’t any punches landed during the scuffle. The last thing Fury and Wilder need is for one of them to have suffered an injury during their altercation. Even a minor injury might have been bad enough to jeopardize the fight or at least taint the outcome. This is the biggest fight of Wilder’s career, and he wants to make sure he gets full credit for beating Fury on Saturday night. Wilder needs an impressive win to help him get a bigger percentage split against IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua next year. Besides an impressive win, Wilder most of all needs the fight with Fury to bring in a lot of PPV buys on Showtime. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn said recently that if the Wilder-Fury fight pulls in 1 million PPV buys or more, and if Wilder wins, then he’ll give him the 50-50 purse split that he’s been asking for to fight Joshua.