Deontay Wilder and Joe Rogan agree Tyson Fury ‘definitely’ didn’t recover from knockdown in time

WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder fought an incredible fight against Tyson Fury. In fact, The American titleholder very nearly finished the resurgent British fighter in the 12th round, scoring a ring-shaking knockdown that would have left lesser men glued to the canvas for minutes.

Miraculously, however, Fury was able to return to his feet and survive to the final bell, at which point the ring-side judges ruled the fight a draw.

In the wake of this incredible fight, Deontay Wilder has been vocal about his belief that referee Jack Reiss gave Tyson Fury too much time to recover from this thunderous 12th-round knockdown — far more than the allotted 10-count.

In other words, Deontay Wilder feels he knocked Tyson Fury out.

https://youtu.be/J2dKtzwqbzM?t=285

“I definitely knocked him out,” Wilder told Joe Rogan on the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“Jack Reiss definitely had delays on that count,” he continued. “I’ve now watched the fight like six times, and definitely when he got to eight, eight was a very long delay.”

“Nine out of ten judges would have waved that off, especially when you see his eyes roll into the back of his head,” Fury concluded.

“He definitely didn’t get up in time,” Rogan agreed. “But it was his job to get up at 10, it was not his job to know exactly when 10 seconds is.”

Whether the count was extended or not, Deontay Wilder and Joe Rogan were as shocked as the rest of us when Tyson Fury returned to his feet.

“I don’t know how the hell he got up,” Rogan said.

“I didn’t understand how he got up either,” Wilder agreed. “God is a good God.”

Referee Jack Reiss isn’t the only person involved in this mammoth heavyweight showdown that Deontay Wilder is taking issue with. He also felt that the ring-side commentators were rather biased in Fury’s favor — particularly Paulie Malignaggi.

“The commentators was terrible,” Wilder said. “I felt they were very biased. There was a lot of things they were pointing out that Fury was doing, but not a lot of things that I was doing. Even when I knocked him down in the eighth round… they had all this to say, but when I knocked him down it was so quiet.”

Wilder believes that, like many combat sports fans, the commentators were simply moved by Fury’s remarkable comeback story — so much so that they hoped he’d win.

“Even in the whole buildup, he sold his story,” Wilder said of his adversary. “He sold his story to America. Any combat sport, it deals with emotions, and people got emotionally tied to it. A lot of people could relate to his story. Certain things I could relate to. When you capture the world and you capture the people that get emotionally involved, they want you to win. Just because of the story. The commentators, especially Paulie [Malignaggi], they got very emotional with it. A lot of the other casters were too, just listening to them. I saw the fight six times. You can see a better look on the fight muting the TV.”

Despite these controversies, Deontay Wilder used one word in particular to describe his riveting war with Fury: epic.

“It was epic. It was epic.”

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 12/10/2018.