By Matt Stephens: IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury created a new firestorm of controversy yesterday with his new video on Youtube in which he made some comments about WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, IBF belt holder Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko.
In a way, yes, Fury was going on about his private parts and saying what he would do with Wilder. But this is just relatively standard rhetoric for Tyson. I know! Saying that seems crazy, but he’s been trotting this kind of language out for years with varying degrees of hilarity – we’ve come to expect it of him.
So nothing new there then? No big story? Well, it would seem there can be a story there if facts aren’t of much importance to your boxing media outlet. I watched the now removed video yesterday by IFL TV on YouTube while washing the pots and never batted an eyelid. Just another 10 or so minutes of Tyson doing what Tyson does.
“I’m going to rip his heart out and make him eat it,” Fury said to IFL TV.
Sometimes funny – sometimes not, but pretty standard stuff (for him!). Then I get up this morning and start looking through various boxing media stuff like I do every day – my YouTube subscriptions, the boxing stuff that pops up on my Facebook being the main offenders – and I’m seeing stories everywhere with ‘Tyson says he’ll RAPE Wilder and Joshua!’ ‘Mmm, interesting’, I think as I delve a little deeper into the stories to discover that they’re all saying that Tyson claimed he was going to ‘RAPE’ Wilder and Joshua on the IFL video I mentioned earlier. So I go to look for the video and re-watch it because I’m pretty certain I never heard him say that and find it has been removed. But, YouTube being what it is means that I know someone will have ripped off the video and put it up anyway. I find a copy and can confirm that the word rape is never once uttered – yet it’s the word rape that is in block capitals in the headline of every so called boxing news outlet’s headlines.
At one point he’s asked by James Helder who he ‘rates’ out of Wilder and Joshua and Tyson says he ‘RATES’ Wilder. Yet I’m seeing people on Youtube devoting whole videos to the fact that Tyson says he ‘RAPES’ Wilder. I mean, what’s going on with and should we listen to anyone talk to us about boxing when they struggle with their first language! Or even worse, they know it says ‘rate’ and they think, ‘Balls to that! Rape gets me more views. So let’s go down that avenue!’ I’d seriously be considering suing some people if I was Tyson and I would’ve left the video up too. Let people see for themselves that he didn’t say it and that the ones that say he did aren’t worth listening to. About a video they’ve clearly never watched! We’re talking porridge for brains here – and not even stodgy porridge, the runny stuff!
So yes, Tyson was ‘at it again.’ But what ‘it’ was just depends on if you mean things that actually happened. I mean, if we’re making stuff up, ‘it’ can mean anything! I think one site has him down as sparring werewolves in camp for the Klitschko rematch. Bloody Tyson – at it again.