Bob Arum bursts after Kate Abdo requests a face-to-face

LAS VEGAS – The last time Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder met face to face was in June at a press conference in Los Angeles. They stared into each other’s eyes for over six minutes without moving.

But on Wednesday, three days before their third encounter with Fury’s WBC heavyweight title at stake on T-Mobile, promoter Bob Arum made sure there was no other.

After a controversial press conference in which Fury and Wilder cursed each other at a televised event in which the only one who had a chance to ask questions was Fox’s Kate Abdo, she invited Fury and Wilder to clash.

Arum made sure that didn’t happen and was later furious that Abdo wanted them to come face to face after things heated up at the press conference.

“It’s still a sport,” said Arum, clearly exorcised. “In the ring, they can kill each other and fight each other. But before the fight you have to control them so that they don’t do something like that. You know that if they had clashed here, they would have jostled each other. There was no security up there. There was this wide [Abdo] training them. Because she’s with Fox, she was totally prejudiced [for Wilder], but Tyson wouldn’t let her get away with it. Who was going to stop anything?

“They are emotional. They are fighters. They are human beings and they insulted each other in front of the world. They were saying the worst things to each other, which is okay. Words don’t hurt. Now you put them together like they’re angry dogs.

Arum said Top Rank and PBC officials agreed ahead of the press conference not to face the fighters. The two are on edge as the fight approaches and they clearly don’t like each other.

The story continues

In the final segment of what was a live TV show, Abdo opened him up for questions. Fury walked around the stage as Wilder sat, mocking Wilder for the apology he made for his loss in the second fight and denouncing him for the way he fought.

Wilder eventually fired back and said Fury had no power. They spent the last three minutes of the segment talking to each other and it was difficult to understand what either was saying.

Then Abdo ordered them to confront each other and Arum got involved. But he spared Fox his greatest wrath, who he said has quashed Top Rank and PBC officials and tried to go face-to-face.

Arum was asked why there was no security on stage, especially when Abdo wanted the fighters to come face to face.

“Fox organized this event [and] of course you should have security, ”Arum said. “Sure. PBC did their job. They were chatting with Fox, ‘No face-to-face, get security, etc.” They get it. They’re boxing people.

“Those fucking Fox people, they don’t know the shit. They bring this woman over from the UK, and she steers the whole press conference at Wilder. I don’t care, but it’s obvious that is what she was doing. She knew the deal wasn’t a showdown. Tom brown [of TGB Promotions] argued with Fox for no one-on-one. We said no face-to-face. What does she say? “We’re going to do a face-to-face. [Expletive] her and [expletive] them. No face-to-face and we saved the fight.