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“Although it was a fantastic victory for myself and it was a great fight, it just did seem that Wilder maybe wasn’t himself.”
Tyson Fury has had some more time to reflect on his rematch with Deontay Wilder, and the WBC heavyweight champion thinks there might be some truth to ‘The Bronze Bomber’s’ walkout excuse.
Speaking to talkSPORT in a recent interview Fury, who TKO’d Wilder in the seventh round, said he was was massively underwhelmed by Wilder’s performance and said it was one of the easiest fights of his professional career.
“To be honest I was quite disappointed in the challenge that Wilder brought,” Fury said. “Because I did train for 12 rounds at any pace and put myself through hell and back for 10 weeks in the training camp. I prepared for the best fighter on the planet, I prepared for the most vicious puncher on the Earth that there’s ever been and I was quite disappointed because it wasn’t the challenge that I expected.”
“Maybe all the excuses he made, some of them were true,” he added. “Maybe his legs were sore from the costume, maybe he did have the flu, maybe he did have a broken arm or a bone in his back or whatever. I’m not sure, because that wasn’t the Deontay Wilder that I prepared for. That wasn’t the animal I put myself through all those hours in training for.”
“Like I said, it would be one of my easiest fights, and it was. I believe that was one of my easiest fights apart from the early knockovers that I had and at this level you don’t usually get that sort of easy victory, with heavyweight champions of the world.
”The guy’s been heavyweight champion of the world and made 10 title defences, knocked out every single person and to go in there with me, who’s usually a boxer, counter-puncher, master-skilled boxer, and get absolutely destroyed in a few rounds.”
‘The Gypsy King’ would like to move on from the bout to focus on British heavyweight rival Anthony Joshua, but it appears Wilder will be exercising his rematch clause and fighting Fury in a trilogy bout later this year. Both men fought to a controversial draw in 2018, with many pundits scoring the bout in favor of Fury.