IBO Boxing Honesty and Integrity
By Scoop Malinowski
Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder had a near physical altercation in the ring in Brooklyn moments after a Wilder win two years ago.
Fury, at the pinnacle of his powers, just weeks after his decision win over Wladimir Klitschko in Germany, invaded the ring and announced his presence to Wilder and the American public by positioning himself in a confrontational face to face position as the WBC champ was about to be interviewed by Jim Gray.
Fury, ever the unpredictable character that he is, began to sing straight to Wilder’s face, “There’s only one Tyson Fury, there’s only one Tyson Fury, What you gotta say about that Deontay?”
Wilder quickly replied, “We all know Fury, you’re just a phony, man. This is just for act. You know where I am. You know what time, what place.”
While Wilder spoke, Fury smiled fearlessly straight into Wilder’s face. It was the fierce, devilish smile of a man who had just dominated the longstanding champion Klitschko. It was the psychological warfare message of a man who knew without an iota of doubt Wilder would be a far easier assignment than his previous triumph.
Wilder continued, edging forward so that he was nose to nose with Fury. “I ain’t scared of nobody. I’ll come to your backyard.”
Fury was still smiling in Wilder’s face. “Listen. Any time, any place, anywhere. Whenever you’re ready bumsquad. Any time, anywhere I’ll fight you in your backyard like Klitschko.”
Suddenly Lou DiBella, the promoter of Wilder, planted a big fake smile on his face and aggressively stepped in to remove Fury, with the assistance of a burly security guard who followed DiBella’s lead.
It looked like DiBella had seen enough and did not want to see his carefully protected pretender exposed to any more verbal humiliation. DiBella knows a mismatch when he sees one and acted like a referee officiating a one-sided beatdown that was on the way to ending in a brutal knockout of a fake, manufactured image.
Fury got in a few more words into Gray’s microphone as he was physically moved. “You’re a bum. I’ll beat you. You’re a bum.”
Wilder now was free of the Fury pestering and had Gray’s microphone to himself. “We already know this is a act,” Wilder said to the Barclays Center crowd and Showtime audience. And then Wilder tried to project his own overrated, hollow identity onto Fury, the authentic heavyweight superstar who had just impressively beaten “Dr. Steelhammer” who had just ruled boxing for over a decade. The same Klitschko who knocked out Wilder in sparring with, reportedly, a jab.
“You’re not a real fighter,” Wilder lied. “This is a act. I don’t play this. I don’t play this. You’re acting like a preacher (walking around the ring throwing his suit coat onto the canvas feigning anger). When you do step in the ring I will baptize you.”
Everybody knows Fury is a genuine fighter with real achievements. Doubts and questions still persist that Wilder is just an Al Haymon protected pretender propped up by 39 handpicked patsy opponents, all controlled by Haymon’s instructions. While we are still waiting to see Wilder fight a non-Haymon fighter like Dillian Whyte or Anthony Joshua or Alexander Povetkin, Fury has proved he is the real deal and the best, not an in-house protected pretender with politics and corruption choreographing his smoke and mirrors illusion of a career.
While it’s highly unlikely Haymon and DiBella have any desire to risk Wilder against Fury later this year or 2019, it would be a terrific fight with plenty of WWF theatrics and drama to excite the public and media.
Fury vs Wilder would be a major superfight in London or America, and an event that would surely rejuvenate the heavyweight division to the heights of the 70s and 80s. But the reason why it’s so unlikely to happen is if Wilder loses badly it could spell doom for the crumbling Haymon empire which depends so heavily on Wilder eventually becoming a marquee draw attraction soon.
