Mike Tyson has lavished praise on Tyson Fury after the Gypsy King crushed Deontay Wilder in the Las Vegas rematch at the weekend.
“Dominant performance champ, Tyson Fury”, Tyson tweeted, after whom Fury was named by his father in 1988.
“Iron Mike” has made no secret of the fact he’s a Fury fan and he was seen celebrating the Englishman’s win at ringside.
Not only was it a dominant performance from Fury in taking his opponent’s WBC heavyweight belt, it was also a devastating one, as he demolished Wilder – the Alabama Hammer – in seven magnificent rounds at the MGM Grand.
Those darn Brits…
Going into the fight, Wilder had never been beaten, but the hammering he took from Fury was a humiliation that was felt across the whole country.
“We took it on the chin again, America,” laments USA Today. “From those darn Brits. And this time it hurt bad… if only the damage ended here.”
It doesn’t, of course, said the paper. Less than three months ago American-Mexican Andy Ruiz was on the wrong end of a pummelling from Watford’s own Anthony Joshua, which cost him his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight belts.
“Check your own belts, my fellow Americans, because by now the Brits might have those too,” the paper continued.
White House rematch?
Donald Trump couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that a fellow American had been outclassed by a Brit, but the United States president did tell reporters outside the White House that it had been a “great fight”.
He then mooted the idea of inviting the pair to his place, presumably for a chat and not a rematch.
Quoted by the New York Post, Trump said: “Maybe we have to bring them both to the White House – I don’t know – because that was really a good one. I think we’ll do that.”
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Show me the money
Who Fury will fight next is the subject of much speculation in the British press with The Sun claiming that if he meets Joshua it could turn into “boxing’s biggest payday”.
The 30-year-old Joshua has a mandatory fight with Kubrat Pulev but the Sun says that because the Bulgarian shares the same promoter as Fury – Bob Arum – “it could be sidestepped” so that the two Brits could clash in the “fight of the century”.
It’s expected the pair could share a £77m pot, plus countless lucrative sponsorship deals.
England expects
Another of Fury’s promoters, Frank Warren, has said he would love to see the pair get it on.
“I want to see Tyson fight Joshua next,” he said. “That would be the biggest single sporting event to take place in the UK since England winning the World Cup. You wouldn’t be able to get a ticket for it. The country would stop to watch it.”
Today’s back pages
Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua – it’s time to ‘get it on’
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