Last weekend was a huge one for fight fans as Jake Paul boxed Mike Tyson on Friday night in a highly anticipated but largely underwhelming main event. The bout was a first for Netflix as the streaming giants broadcasted a combat sports event for the first time. Tyson looked every bit of his 58-year-old self as he labored through the eight, two-minute rounds and lost comfortably on all three judges’ scorecards. The co-main event was worth staying up for as Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano delivered a fight to rival their first. The Irishwoman won on all three judges’ scorecards to make it two from two against the Puerto Rican.
The following night, Jon Jones defended his heavyweight title from Madison Square Garden, New York as he made light work of the heavyweight legend and two time former champ, Stipe Miocic. Earlier in the night, Michael Chandler delivered a performance we have come to expect from him – exhilarating, chaotic and fast-paced. Charles Oliveira was too good on the night, however, and won a decision by a wide margin in the eyes of all the judges.
Then on Sunday, fans got the news that Tommy Fury will be taking on Darren Till in a boxing match from the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester on January 18. The announcement, a Misfits boxing card, came as a surprise to almost everybody as there were no rumors swirling online beforehand, something which is usually commonplace in the new age of social media. Fury and Till wasted no time in kicking things off in relation to the build-up, quite literally, as they held a press conference this evening.
The press conference began in unusual fashion as John Fury, father of both Tommy and Tyson, credited Darren Till for being a ‘real fighter’ and said that he was very respectful of the Liverpudlian. The stance John Fury took, at least initially, was a stark contrast to how he had behaved during the build-up to Tommy’s fight with KSI, and also Tyson’s fight with Oleksandr Usyk.
Things took a darker turn when Darren Till took to the microphone. The former UFC middleweight contender said he was going into the ring to annihilate Tommy Fury, and said that he would kick him in the face should the fight not turn out in his favor. Ordinarily, this would seem like a tongue-in-cheek comment in order to publicise the bout, however Till stated that he didn’t even know how much he was being paid to fight Fury and didn’t care. Till went on to repeat his threat to turn the boxing match into a real fight and claimed to not care if he got fined his whole purse.
The comments angered John Fury and the respect was out of the window as both he and Darren Till traded insults. The final straw for the press conference was when Till directed his insults to Tommy Fury. It appears that a drink was thrown at the former UFC contender in a direction close to where John Fury was sitting, and a brawl almost erupted bringing a premature end to the proceedings.
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