By Norm Frauenheim-
LAS VEGAS – Show Tyson Fury an empty stage and it won’t stay empty for long. He’ll fill it, all 6-foot-9 of him and a charisma for which there is no tape. No tale, either. But that intangible charisma is there, big enough to fill a stage and a room.
Fury did both Friday for his bout Saturday against German challenger Tom Schwarz for the lineal heavyweight title in an ESPN+ televised fight at the MGM Grand.
He took the stage for a weigh-in re-done for ESPN cameras at a prime-time hour. The real weigh-in – one regulated by the Nevada Commission – had already happened in the morning. The weights were documented and filed by the time Fury stepped onto the scale for what was a little bit like lip-synch.
But the show must go on. So, too, must a showman.
Fury was there for, fulfilling his promise to entertain in first fight in a new deal with ESPN and Top Rank. A small crowd roared. Fury waved one finger at Schwarz. Maybe, it was his way of saying the fight would last one round. Or that one punch would finish Schwarz. Or that Schwarz didn’t have one chance. Fury is a prohibitive favorite. In the UK, Schwarz is a 12-1 longshot.
Oh yeah, Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) was 263 pounds, six-and-a-half pounds heavier than he was for his last fight in a controversial draw with Deontay Wilder in December in Los Angeles. Schwarz (24-0, 16 KOs) was at 245.5 pounds.