It is rare for there to be the genuine bad blood and hate in a world heavyweight title fight that exists in the rival camps of Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte.
There is always a bit of fake noise, perhaps a shove, a lunge, a foul-mouthed assault, but it is odd for two teams to be at the point where they are close to not being able to communicate. That is rare even in the modern boxing game, where so many suddenly have so much power.
Some of the greatest rivalries in heavyweight history had wonderful agendas, but business was often normal away from the hype and confrontations. There is nothing false about this fight’s unpleasantness.
Right now, there are continuing doubts over Whyte’s role in the promotion for the fight; he has had his lawyer ask several questions and Fury’s people have responded. There is a stand-off here, a real hard wall of reason to climb. Fury’s people are, understandably, just getting on with business.
Obviously, two camps disliking each other is nothing new in the boxing game where conferences have been ruined by scuffling outfits, men have been put behind metal bars, kept in closed rooms and escorted to and from the stage by dozens of minders. This fight is extreme and there is a long, long way to go before the pair are on the same stage swapping insults.
This fight has all the early signs to become part of the sport’s dirty history.
At the first announcement for their fight, Mike Tyson bit Lennox Lewis on the leg and Lewis responded with a free punch. “He missed his chance to kill me,” Tyson said in the week of their actual fight. “If he had bit me, he would be dead.” In the ring on that hot and fevered night in Memphis, the pair were kept apart by a phalanx of edgy guards. I honestly thought that guns would be drawn. It was a fiery and out-of-control cauldron before the first bell.
In the end, Lewis was so dominant and broke the remnants of Tyson so totally that there was no angry theatre left in the crowd of 22,000; the men in the Tyson business fell silent as their boss was beaten. It was like a public execution.
A few years earlier, Lewis was involved in six months of nastiness with Frank Bruno before their fight outdoors in Cardiff. The WBC heavyweight title was the official prize, but that glittering bauble had nothing to do with the real prize which was pride and ego. The weeks and days and hours before the first bell, which was after 1am in the morning to accommodate the American broadcasters, were toxic – the men and women in the carnival were vicious, the verbal assaults and accusations sensational.
Kellie Maloney was at Mickey Duff's throat; Laura Bruno was after everybody and Big Frank was livid at some of the things Lennox was accused of saying. Lawyers were involved, the police were alerted and under a canopy of a dark and wet midnight sky, the bitter rivals finally started throwing punches. It was memorable; Lewis was trailing until he finished it in the seventh. The kissing and making up took a long, long time. Their hate was real and it was far more than ordinary boxing business.
There is very little chance of there being any smiles and handshakes and cuddles at the end of Fury against Whyte; the fighters, maybe, the teams, no way. There exists a genuine sense from both sides that the other camp has created the problems. However, the time for negotiations has gone – it vanished when the purse-bid envelopes were opened last month.
“This is the Tyson Fury Show,” said Frank Warren, Fury’s promoter and the man behind the massive $41m (£31.2m) purse bid.
And right now, it is the Fury show and that is a fun one-man band. However, I can hear the distant drums getting ready for Whyte’s belated entry to the party and when that happens this event will move to a different level of fun, hate and feelings. What a business.
