SOUND OF SILENCE
IF the first rule of Fight Club is to never talk about Fight Club, the first rule of fight sports should perhaps be this: do not talk about a fight until the two fighters enter the ring.
In the case of British heavyweights Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte, never has that particular rule been more necessary, vital and understood. It has, as a rule of thumb, helped us get through weeks of peculiar and rather unsettling build-up and it has reminded us to temper our expectations and prepare ourselves for the worst. Even now, just days from the pair meeting at Wembley Stadium, we are, because of both this rule and boxing’s propensity to disappoint, braced for the worst-case scenario.
Where this fight is concerned, any reassurance had to come from within. We could not rely on Dillian Whyte, whose silence from the moment the fight was announced has been more irritating than enigmatic, nor could we rely on Tyson Fury, a man who has effectively become the unreliable narrator of his own life story.
In fact, one could argue the wait for Fury-Whyte has somewhat to be going, is forever only one Wilder swing away from being turned completely on its head. It is therefore a situation fraught with tension; one hard to navigate and one almost as hard to watch.
