“You’re a bum!” Fury fired back as both fighters pushed their faces into each other in an explosive moment that looked as though it could go off at any second. I don’t play. This isn’t wrestling.
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Like a heel wrestler, Fury stood on the corner turnbuckles, gestured toward the crowd as was about booed out of the building.
All that was missing was a steel chair to the back. Couple that with the belief most observers have that he’s avoiding Povetkin, a former title-holder, and you can see why he better take Szpilka apart in a spectacular fashion or he’ll be worked over more by the media and fans.
The hype for a fight that hasn’t been signed was more entertaining than the fight that had just ended.
The heavyweights fought a fantastic eight rounds and were closing in on a ninth until Wilder caught the Pole flush with 36 seconds left in the round.
In the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING opener, Charles Martin won the IBF Heavyweight World Championship when Vyacheslav Glazkov suffered a right knee injury in the third round and was unable to continue. Wilder said Szpilka turned out to be “crafty” and had the partisan Polish fans in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center on his side.
The fifth round belonged to Szpilka, who landed an early left-right combo and put together several hard rights later in the round while making Wilder lunge and miss.
In non-televised action, Brooklyn’s Adam Kownacki (13-0, 10 KOs) thrilled the hometown crowd with an exciting and dominant victory over Danny Kelly (9-2-1, 8 KOs).
They sang songs for Szpilka and seemed to rally the fighter in his bid to become the first Polish heavyweight champion.
Szpilka’s neck was immobilized and he was removed from the ring on a stretcher and taken to a local hospital for observation. “To be the one when, even after I’m going to be dead, people are going to say, ‘Oh, this was the Szpilka guy, the guy who was the first Polish heavyweight champion.’ This is what I want to do, and this is what I’m going to prove to everybody on (Saturday)”. When you do step in this ring, with me, if you do, because this should have been done a long time ago. I don’t know what [Glazkov] was doing. “Everyone who knows me knows I come to fight”, Szpilka said.
Just look at the power of this punch from Wilder.
The year could see Saturday’s winners meet in a few months as Fury and Klitschko figure to do, and the winners of those bouts meet in an undisputed showdown late in 2016.
2008 saw perhaps the ultimate classic of the celebrity boxing genre when Lemar, the man who should have won the first season of Fame Academy, fought television presenter Ben Shephard in a scintillating three round bout. His body just wouldn’t cooperate. The previously undefeated Ukrainian continued fighting, but he fell to the canvas again while throwing a punch.
“This should have been my belt. I can box like him, but I was not the best”. “Things happen due to adrenaline and excitement, but I’m very confident about what I’m going to do on Saturday night”.
Everyone complains how the heavyweight division was tiresome during the Klitschko era and their style of winning was considered mundane and devoid of drama.
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Martin has now thrown himself into the mix in the heavyweight division and called out Fury and Wilder. The last was on May 11, 1900 when James Jeffries knocked out James Corbett in the 23rd round.
