Photo credit: Getty Images
By Trevor Lake
The official announcement to officially kick off Fury vs. Wilder III which takes place on July 24th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas has taken place, and it was strange to say the least!
Normally Wilder who is never short of a word or two remained silent throughout, letting his new trainer, Malik Scott do the talking on his behalf. Wilder sat quietly with his headphones on, even when Fury offered to do some role play and take on the role of Wilder to answer questions!
After some back and forth with Scott about if Wilder would be able to change his style of fighting and be more than a one-punch KO artists the proceedings moved on to the staredown.
Fury and Wilder stood a few feet apart and refused to face forwards when asked by the media in attendance to do so.
The staredown lasted about 5 minutes with neither fighting breaking eye contact, but their respective camps exchanging some words. Eventually Wilder removed his sunglasses before walking away......headphones still in place.
One has to question if this purely a tactic by Wilder to not allow Fury the opportunity to play mind games, and if it was the it was a strange approach as there will be many more interactions to come with Fury before fight night.
Fury predicts that he will stop Wilder within 3 rounds for this fight, and doesn't believe that Wilder even deserve the trilogy fight after the comprehensive manner of his defeat in their 2nd meeting stating “All the excuses if you combine them all together, they’re not worth two cents" before continuing with “It’s all s***. He got battered, and he’s going to get battered again. Hopefully, zero, nothing so there’s no excuses,” Fury said when asked what does he think Wilder will wear into the ring.
Whatever your thoughts on this fight, I am sure its going to be an interesting build up!