WHEN it comes to heavyweight boxing this weekend’s clash of giants has to be one of the most anticipated fights for years.
The stars have aligned to make the rematch between WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder and Britain’s unbeaten former undisputed champion Tyson Fury one of those rare occasions in boxing when no hype is needed.
The bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas brings 6ft 7in Wilder, one of the hardest hitters in boxing history, back into the same ring as ‘Gypsy King’ Fury, who has incredible footwork and boxing skills for a man of 6ft 9in.
It is a classic match up.
Both men unbeaten with the only blemish on their records, the draw they fought with each other 14 months ago in Los Angeles.
It is the boxer against the puncher.
The Limey against the Yank.
On the face of it you’d think the only way the lighter-hitting Fury can win is on points.
And the crude but huge punching Wilder would be tipped to win by knockout, given that all but one of his 42 previous wins have been inside the distance.
But this is heavyweight boxing.
Anything can happen.
You sense a grudging respect between the two men, one born to travelling folk in the North West of England, the other who grew up in a poor neighbourhood in Alabama.
Both are religious, both have large families – Fury has five children and Wilder has eight – and both have watched while Olympic golden boy Anthony Joshua has claimed the limelight in recent years.
But a combination of their incredible first fight – in which Fury outboxed Wilder but was knocked down twice including looking down and out in the 12th round before rising to his feet like Lazarus and taking the fight to Wilder – and Joshua’s shock loss to chubby challenger Andy Ruiz Jr in New York last year, has meant it is now their time.
Yes Joshua has since reclaimed his belts in an unexciting rematch against Ruiz, but he can no longer claim to be the best heavyweight in the world.
The winner of Wilder v Fury, which takes place in the early hours of Sunday morning UK time, will certainly have that honour.
So who will triumph?
I’m not a great one for predictions.
But when many people wrote Fury off before the first fight with Wilder I thought his boxing skill and footwork would give him a real chance, just as long as he could avoid the champion’s bombs.
And he nearly did win.
Here was a man, who had descended into a black hole of depression after his title triumph against Wladimir Klitschko.
He went on drink and drug binges and ballooned from his fighting weight of 18 stone to almost 28 stone, gave up his title and received a two-year anti-doping ban.
How he got himself back into a ring, never mind battling for a draw for the heavyweight championship of the world, is an amazing achievement.
I met Tyson Fury a year ago when he came to speak at an event in a marquee next to a pub on the outskirts of Leeds.
I found his story compelling.
Not so much his battles inside the ring, as those outside them.
He might clown around but make no mistake, he is a highly intelligent and endearingly honest individual.
Speaking about his mental health problems, he was articulate in a way only someone who has been to the brink can be.
“I had everything but it didn’t mean nothing. I wanted to die on a daily basis,” he said.
“You can have everything in life and feel like s**t on a daily basis because no one can see inside the mind.”
He told the audience: “I thought I’ve got a great platform to spread awareness about mental health, especially in sports.
“Because as big and tough and supposedly as a great fighter I am, it can bring anybody down. Nobody is unstoppable from mental health problems.”
I said last year that Tyson Fury has found that his biggest opponent was himself.
“Having taken control of his demons, there is very little limit to what he can achieve in the future,” I wrote a year ago.
So I hope he does triumph in Las Vegas.
And if he does defeat Deontay Wilder it will be so much more than a victory for the heavyweight championship of the world.
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FAREWELL then Larry Tesler.
You may, like me, have never heard of Tesler before his death was announced this week.
But I, and probably many other journalists, are indebted to him.
This icon of early computing, who has died at the age of 74, started working in Silicon Valley in the early 1960s – almost certainly before it was known by that name and definitely before it became home to some of the world’s largest technology and social media corporations.
Tesler began his career when computers were just not part of most peoples’ lives.
He was a researcher who worked for Xerox, the print and digital document giant.
He worked for a number of major tech firms during his long career and was poached from Xerox by Apple founder Steve Jobs where he spent 17 years and rose to become chief scientist.
After leaving Apple he set up an education start-up, and worked for brief periods at Amazon and Yahoo.
It was at Xerox that he came up with his most memorable innovations which helped make the personal computer simple to learn and use.
They included the “cut”, “copy” and “paste” commands.
To be honest, I don’t know what I’d have done without him.
And I’m sure lots of other journalists feel the same.
You can add lots of PR people to that list too.
Without Larry it is almost certain their press releases would have been carved to pieces by purposeful journalists looking to make a point about their superior writing skills.
Until we became less purposeful and more lazy, thanks to Larry.
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CONFIDENT, shrewd and charismatic, Andrew Cope is one of Yorkshire’s most successful entrepreneurs.
I first met him after he led a management buyout of vehicle leasing business Zenith.
The deal, backed by venture capital firm 3i, valued Leeds-based Zenith at about £13m.
Half a dozen or so buy outs later and the business was an industry giant worth about £750m.
That was when Andrew left and has been involved in a number of successful ventures since.
He would be the first to admit that one of his better investments wasn’t buying retail property in Harrogate.
There are far too many empty shops in the North Yorkshire spa town, among them the former Cath Kidston store on James Street which Andrew owns.
But like the entrepreneur he is, he put his mind to how to fill the empty retail space and invited an upmarket West End art gallery to do a pop-up exhibition in the shop.
He then invited all his wealthy friends (and me) to a drinks event where Messums of Mayfair displayed some of their impressive artwork – both paintings and sculpture.
Chatting to Copey at the do, I also got a glimpse of his entrepreneurial flair in action.
He pointed out a six foot bronze statue of a particularly well-endowed man which stood proudly in the window of the shop.
He said a number of big swinging dudes in private equity were competing to buy it.
A stroke of genius.
Have a great weekend.