Written by The big boys are even bigger for this fight.
Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder on Friday came in at the heaviest weights of their careers for their pay-per-view bout Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Fury weighed 277 pounds, four more than when he knocked out Wilder in seven rounds to take the American’s heavyweight title in February of last year. Wilder came in at 238, seven more than in the previous fight.
Thus, Fury weighed 39 pounds more than Wilder on Friday. He had a 42-pound edge in the previous fight and a 44-pound advantage for their first fight, a draw in 2018.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) had bulked up to 273 for the fight with Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) last year, 18½ more than he weighed for his unanimous decision victory over Otto Wallin five months earlier.
The idea was to bolster his size advantage over Wilder. And the strategy worked. He bullied Wilder from beginning to end, which made it difficult for the former champion to find space to land his big shots.
Wilder was asked on Friday about his decision to add bulk for the fight Saturday.
“I’m bench pressing a little over 350 [pounds] so whatever weight he comes in, I can lay on my back and lift him,” he said. “So it won’t be none of that rushing me and putting all his weight on me and different things like that.”
Fury also was asked about the significance of adding a few pounds.
“It means total obliteration for a dosser, total annihilation,” he said. “That’s what it means to me. 277 pounds. I’m going to put him in the royal infirmary after this fight. Don’t worry about that.”
And he wasn’t finished. He then was asked how he envisions the third chapter of the trilogy ending.
“With him severally hurt on the floor, smashed to bits, like he’s been run over by an 18-wheeler truck,” he said.
The weigh-in was largely uneventful aside from the fighters’ added bulk and some back and forth trash talk immediately after they weighed in.
Fury was greeted with boos from Wilder supporters as he stepped onto the scale. He responded by giving them his middle finger.
And organizers agreed to forego the traditional stare down for a second time, a cautionary measure to avoid any pre-fight violence that could jeopardize the event. The fighters also didn’t face-off after the final news conference on Wednesday.
The weights for the preliminary fights on the all-heavyweight card are as follows:
Frank Sanchez (240) vs. Efe Ajagba (237)
Adam Kownacki (258) vs. Robert Helenius (246)
Vladimir Tereshkin () vs. Jerad Anderson (240)