Tyson Fury defeated Deontay Wilder to retain his WBC heavyweight crown on Saturday with a spectacular 11th-round knockout in a trilogy fight that lived up to its hype.
Wilder after the fight said Fury’s size was a problem for him to handle after he was rushed to the hospital.
Acknowledging that he had struggled to deal with Fury’s size in brief remarks, Wilder said, “I did my best, but it wasn’t good enough.
“I’m not sure what happened. I know that in training, he did certain things, and I also knew that he didn’t come in at 277 to be a ballet dancer.
“He came to lean on me, try to rough me up and he succeeded.”
It was an extraordinary battle in front of 15,820 fans at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with both fighters getting knocked down on multiple occasions in a contest full of improbable twists and turns as the two rivals traded blows.
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It looked to have swayed Fury’s way after flooring Wilder in the third round, only for the 35-year-old from Alabama to respond with two knockdowns of Fury that had the English champion clinging on desperately in the fourth.
But it was the bigger, heavier Fury — landing the cleaner and more damaging blows — who finished the stronger, and the champion had Wilder down once again in the 10th with a right hook.
Wilder responded bravely to that knockdown by wobbling Fury in return.
But the brutal energy-sapping nature of the fight, and Fury’s relentless physicality, finally took its toll on Wilder in the 11th.
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