Kenny Bayless has revealed that he warned Deontay Wilder that he was close to stopping the fight against Tyson Fury before the towel was eventually thrown in.
Tyson was crowned the new WBC heavyweight champion after Wilder’s co-trainer Mark Breland threw the towel in the ring during the seventh round of the highly anticipated rematch in Las Vegas.
Wilder was being dominated by Fury but was angry with Breland over his decision to stop the fight.
But Bayless admits he was close to halting the contest himself before Wilder’s corner took action.
‘It was a good stoppage in my opinion because in the minute’s rest between rounds before the stoppage I went over to Deontay,’ Bayless told SiriusXM.
‘I looked him in the face and I gave him the line that us referees give the fighters to let them know, ‘hey, you’ve gotta show me something.’
‘They know that if you go back out there and you don’t show me something, then I might have to do my job and stop it.
‘Deontay is a warrior, when I saw the towel come in out of the corner of my eyes and stopped it, Deontay’s first response was, ‘Why did I stop it?’
‘Then I let him know it was his corner that stopped it, but I was very close to stopping it.’
Bayless also clarified that the blood from Wilder’s eat was from a cut to his lobe rather than as a result of any damage to his eardrum.
‘I thought that the blood was coming from the inside of the ear,’ said Bayless.
‘At the end of the round when I went over to check, the doctor was already in the ring while I was picking up the scorecard.
‘The doctor looked at me and said, ‘He’s all right.’ So at that point I left it alone.
‘It wasn’t until after the fight that the doctor said Deontay wears those things in his earlobes, those rings, apparently that lobe got cut and it was the lobe that was bleeding, not the eardrum.’
