Los Angeles (AFP)

"You will not get up", "You will be knocked out in two rounds": WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury, who forced him to a draw in their first fight, launched hostilities 40 days before their expected second confrontation.

The two boxers, who participate in the revival of heavyweights in the same way as the British Anthony Joshua, holder of the other belts WBA, IBF, WBO, the Cuban Luiz Ortiz and the American Andy Ruiz, opened the second chapter of their rivalry pugilistique, during a press conference held Monday at Novo, a posh club in Los Angeles.

A little spectacle in itself: introduced on the platform by the speaker Jimmy Lennon Jr, as they will be on February 22 in the ring of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Fury presented himself dressed in a cream pants-jacket set with many prints with his effigy and a green cap upside down; Wilder was more sober, a black suit with a golden border on the sides and a WBC belt on the shoulder.

"I knocked him out the first time. I told him two years ago that I was going to baptize him. Getting up is part of the baptism (...) It's an unfinished business. I'm going to finish it. I I'm going to knock him out. I told him: I'm the lion, I'm the king of the jungle and on February 22, I will snatch his head from his body, "promised the American.

"I'm going to go, give him a boxing lesson and knock him out I've never been so sure of a thing in my life. As I was this morning putting on this costume, these shoes, washing, brushing my teeth: I'm going to kick this son of p's ass ... in the ring, "replied Fury.

To each his own style. In the way of expressing oneself, like boxing.

- "Hagler-Hearns way" -

Fourteen months earlier, it was a stone's throw from Novo, at the Staples Center, that they fought a memorable fight, at the end of which the powerful Wilder had to keep his title only to a right that had knocked down Fury in the 12th round.

The Briton, who led on points thanks to his more technical boxing, got up in extremis, as he had done for the first time in the 9th round. And the draw was declared by the judges. Wilder retained his belt, but Fury was the only one to resist him in 43 fights.

The two therefore want to finish it once and for all and, for the photo, presented themselves twice face to face, at the beginning and at the end of the conference, while not failing to provoke verbally. Without the audience being able to catch their sweet words, the DJ was instructed to play music loud enough at the same time.

The "Bronze Bomber" and the "Gypsy King" continued to promise each other the best possible treatment in over a month, after which they were each interrogated by journalists.

"I'm finally going to bring back what I won the last time. I'm going to take it in the center of the ring, mano to mano. We're going to have a fight like Thomas Hearns-Marvin Hagler," roared Fury, evoking the mythical 1985 fight that saw Hagler knock out Hearns in the third round, in middleweight.

"Except that I'm going to knock him in half," said the 31-year-old Briton (29 wins, 20 of which were before the limit, 1 draw), who had pushed the song earlier at the request of a journalist.

"No matter how he says it, he doesn't believe a word of it. I can sense he is nervous, afraid of what happened the first time", smiled during this time Wilder (42 victories including 41 before the limit, 1 draw), who laughed at the excitement of his rival by mimicking "sniffs" of cocaine, in reference to Fury's drug problems in the past.

© 2020 AFP