Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk had to be pulled away from each other after an 11-minute faceoff ahead of their title fight.Heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk and challenger Tyson Fury had to be pulled apart following a more than 11-minute faceoff at a press conference ahead of their title fight on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The pair held the position for 11 minutes and 20 seconds before being separated, with Fury, 36, shouting taunts at Usyk, 37, who eventually walked away with arms aloft as though in victory.
Only towards the end of the confrontation in Riyadh, in which World Boxing Council (WBC) President Mauricio Sulaiman stepped in to try to break up the pair, did matters become heated, with Usyk coolly standing his ground while Fury became increasingly animated as an attempt was made to pull him away.
Ukrainian fighter Usyk defeated Fury, who was born in Manchester, the United Kingdom, in a split-points decision in May to unify the heavyweight belts. But the latter immediately triggered terms in the fight allowing a rematch.
“Now we have just a performance with lights and cameras. Everything will take place on Saturday,” Usyk calmly told reporters even before the customary face-to-face encounter between the pair on stage.
Tyson Fury was the far more vocal of the fighters at the press conference [Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters]
In keeping with the tone of the event, and matter still to come, Fury said he would “dish out a whole lot of pain” at Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena on Saturday night. Advertisement
“I’ve got nothing to say, apart from there is going to be a lot of hurt and pa …
