By Tom Hoffarth
The Deonatay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight unification bout at Staples Center on Saturday is said to be the most influential of its class held in the U.S. since Mike Tyson took on Lennox Lewis in 2002, an event held in Memphis because Tyson couldn’t get a licence in Nevada in the aftermath of biting Lewis on his leg during a press conference mess in the months before.
Wilder-Fury, in spite of what headline writers could have made of both their last names, has been much more tame and far less furious.
Al Bernstein, the Showtime boxing analyst with nearly 40 years in the business as a commentator, after he covered it as a newspaper man and wrote books about it, shared some of his state-of-the-sport ideas with us leading into this Wilder-Fury matchup.
One, it’s “absurd” to say the sport is dying.
Two, the Mayweather-McGregor “fight” he had to cover did minimal damage to either boxing or MMA.
Three, a movie out now like “Creed II” can’t hurt the sport’s relevance.
Here’s our story from The Hollywood Reporter.

Al Bernstein appears on “The Rich Eisen Show” at the AT&T Studios in El Segundo on Thursday.