Boxing
Tyson Fury downplays Deontay Wilder’s power: 'He couldn’t keep a 50-year-old man down'
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Deontay Wilder's mighty right hand has been deemed by fans and pundits as the deadliest punch in boxing and perhaps the most devastating shot of all time. Bigger than Mike Tyson's, George Foreman's and Joe Louis', to name a few. Wilder is 42-0-1 with 41 knockouts. The bombastic heavyweight from Alabama has knocked out every opponent he has stepped inside the ring with, except for one.
On Saturday night from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Wilder gets the opportunity to rectify that when he locks horns against Tyson Fury in Wilder vs. Fury 2 for his WBC heavyweight championship. During their first meeting in December 2018, Fury survived two vicious knockdowns in the ninth and 12th rounds to garner a split draw, though a large number of media members scored the fight for the Brit.
In the interim, Wilder knocked out Dominic Breazeale and Luis Ortiz while Fury stopped Tom Schwarz and went to a unanimous decision victory over Otto Wallin. But when Fury looked back at Wilder's performances between their first fight and now, the "Gypsy King" didn't come away too impressed.
"I saw the Dominic Breazeale fight," Fury told DAZN News at Tuesday's media roundtable. "In the first round, he got wobbled himself. He got clipped. Then I seen him knock him out with the right hand. That really wasn’t an improvement. That’s just what he does. In the second fight with Ortiz, it was pretty much similar to the first fight but a little bit shorter. In my opinion, I had him losing every round until the knockdown. Pretty much similar to the first fight. I kept giving the rounds to Ortiz. His legs just got tired because he’s so old. He stood there for too long and he got clipped and that was it. He even got up back up.
"He can’t even keep a 50-year-old man off of his back. We’re talking about the biggest puncher in history. He can’t even keep a 50-year-old down."
Because of his ability to rise from the dead to nearly snatch the WBC crown and what he's seen out of Wilder, Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs) insists there's nothing to worry about once the bell rings.
"Nothing, Fury definitively said. "Before I beat him last time, he had already beaten Luis Ortiz then. So he’s only fought one round and someone he’s already beaten before."
