Tyson Fury Leaves No Doubt with Dominant TKO Win over Deontay Wilder

Tyson Fury claimed this time would be different. After a draw in their first bout, he promised he would bring the fight to Deontay Wilder—the scariest man in a very scary sport—promised he would be the aggressor against a boxer who can end any man's night with a single flick of his right hand. 

Words, however, are cheap. And most observers expected Fury, who first sat on the heavyweight boxing throne after a cautious performance against Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, to continue to play it safe.

He had, after all, tasted Wilder's prodigious power and survived with milliseconds to spare. Sometimes fighting the other man's fight doesn't make you look like a swaggering tough guy—only a fool who doesn't know what's best.

But Fury was as good as his word Saturday in Las Vegas, claiming the center of the ring against Wilder and acting as the aggressor for nearly 20 minutes as the two exchanged blows. In a rematch, you expect to know the other man, to understand his intentions, his timing, his ethos. Under new trainer Javan "SugarHill" Steward, Fury looked like a changed man. 

The first fight between Wilder and Fury was the classic story of the boxer and the puncher. The tale was a simple one. Fury would roam the ring while looking to avoid trouble as much as cause it. Wilder, less skilled in that formulaic back-and-forth fistic dance, aimed to disrupt the dignified science of boxing with a single right hand, no matter how ugly. 

It was a game they played right up until the final seconds of that December 2018 bout, with Wilder biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The difference between biding and wasting is a subtle one. Had Fury not toppled to the mat in that final stanza, it would have been the latter. Since he did, knocked briefly insensate by a right hand, it was the former.

This time, rather than dance on the outside of Wilder's punching range, Fury brought the fight to him. He proved the better fighter on the inside, using a 40-plus-pound weight advantage to bully Wilder every time they made contact. He landed more power punches than Wilder managed to throw, thoroughly outclassing his opponent in a career-defining performance. 

In the first bout, Fury went to the mat twice. This time it was Wilder who crashed down two times before his corner mercifully stopped the bout in the seventh round and handed Fury the WBC heavyweight title.

"He did what he said he was going to do to the tee," announcer and former pound-for-pound great Andre Ward said. "The power wasn't just one way. It goes both ways. We're talking about heavyweights."

The world wobbled for Wilder in the third round when a combination put him down. In truth, it never completely righted itself again. For the remainder of the fight, he looked like a newborn giraffe, feet unsteady and balance unsure. Blood poured from his ear, perhaps the sign of a busted eardrum, perhaps mere cosmetic damage. The merest breeze of a punch left him struggling for his equilibrium, down again in the fifth after a body shot.

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Wilder, the most feared man in the sport, was fighting to survive. Fury, supposedly the technician, was savagely licking the blood from his foe's neck.

The inside of a boxing ring is a lonely place. Stripped to the waist and utterly exposed, even the most powerful man is only so strong. The body eventually fails, the brain protecting even the stoutest of hearts from stubborn harm. In Wilder's case, it was his corner that saved him from himself, as Mark Breland threw in the towel as his fighter stood with his back to the ropes with every intention to fight until he couldn't fight anymore.

"My side threw in the towel," a dejected Wilder said after the bout. "I just wish my corner had let me go out on my shield. I'm a warrior."

No one could fault Wilder's courage, and battles in the ring are fought by the brave. But, no matter what you've seen written in pretty prose, courage isn't the most important attribute a fighter carries with them into the contest. Speed, skill and ruthlessness all count for more. And Fury dominated in every aspect that truly mattered. 

"He came here tonight; he manned up," Fury said. "He really did show the heart of a champion. I hit him with a clean right hand and dropped him. And he got back up and battled into Round 7. He's a warrior, and he will be back."

The bout set a gate record for heavyweight boxing in the state of Nevada, surpassing the mark set by Hall of Famers Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis in 1999. Stars flocked to Sin City to witness the spectacle firsthand, an indication that boxing can still make cultural waves if the ingredients are there for potential calamity.

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They call boxing the sweet science, in part to cover up an unpleasant truth: that deeply hidden part of all fight fans that wants to see blood spill and bodies hit the floor. Nothing can make your heart beat as fast as two heavyweights locked in a struggle that will most likely end only when one is removed from his senses. As much as we appreciate their skills, it's the thrill of a promised car crash, that surge of excitement when the haymakers start flying, that brings people into the arena. 

Wilder and Fury provided that sense of excitement, the possibility of something special. And, in both fights, they delivered on that promise. With a third bout looming, heavyweight boxing is in a good place for the first time in decades. 

Fury was carried into the ring on a throne. By the time he'd finished singing and celebrating, he left truly deserving to wear the crown.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.