REFEREE Kenny Bayless has revealed he was “very close” to calling off Tyson Fury’s pummelling of Deontay Wilder when the towel was thrown in.
Fury earned a TKO win and the WBC crown when he stopped Wilder in the seventh round of their blockbuster bout in Las Vegas last weekend.
The American has since blamed his heavy ring walk outfit for his sluggish performance and hinted he could sack trainer Mark Breland for throwing in the towel.
But Bayless says regardless of all that, Fury was so dominant that he was thinking of waving the contest off anyway.
Bayless told SiriusXM Fight Nation: “It was a good stoppage in my opinion because in the minute’s rest between rounds before the stoppage I went over to Deontay.
“I looked him in the face and I gave him the line that us referees give the fighters to let them know, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta show me something.’
“They know that if you go back out there and you don’t show me something, then I might have to do my job and stop it.
“Deontay is a warrior, when I saw the towel come in out of the corner of my eyes and stopped it, Deontay’s first response was, ‘Why did I stop it?’
“Then I let him know it was his corner that stopped it, but I was very close to stopping it.”
Fury was shown licking Wilder’s blood during the beatdown – with the pair set for a third fight after the Bronze Bomber took up his option of a rematch.
But Bayless explained that the injury – while it appeared bad – was not as damaging as first thought.
He added: “I thought that the blood was coming from the inside of the ear.
“At the end of the round when I went over to check, the doctor was already in the ring while I was picking up the scorecard.
“The doctor looked at me and said, ‘He’s all right.’ So at that point I left it alone.
“It wasn’t until after the fight that the doctor said Deontay wears those things in his earlobes, those rings, apparently that lobe got cut and it was the lobe that was bleeding, not the eardrum.”
