Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk locked eyes for a full 10 minutes before their huge rematch on Saturday night as boxing chiefs struggled to separate the heavyweights.
The Ukrainian holds the WBC, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles after beating Fury in their first meeting in May by split-decision and they are back in Riyadh to battle it out again.
Both men are unpredictable, sometimes jovial, sometimes off the wall, sometimes intense and it was very much the latter during the face-off on Thursday.
The pair locked eyes for 10 minutes, with neither moving a muscle for most of it before they eventually resorted to trash talk and eventually separating.
They took a lot of persuasion to step away, though, with World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman stepping in after a few minutes but with no success.
Sulaiman pleaded with the fighters but was ignored and requests to their security teams also fell on deaf ears.
After a good seven minutes of the stare down, veteran boxing broadcaster Steve Bunce said on TNT Sports: ‘They’re in a stand-off, a cul-de-sac of their own emotions. This is not going to be easy to reverse from.
‘They’re not going to break into smiles, shake each others’ hand, walk off and go and have a soft drink on their way to their hotel rooms.’
However, eventually enough was enough, the two fighters were shepherded apart and the eye contact was eventually broken.
Fury, typically, switched gears pretty quickly and went from incredibly intense to dancing with the crowd just seconds after breaking from the face-off.
Before the face-off the press conference came to an end with both fighters offered the chance to send a final message to each other.
Fury said: ‘I can’t wait for Saturday night, thank you everyone involved, God bless.’
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Usyk added: ‘Don’t be afraid. I will not leave you alone. See you on Saturday.’
The Gypsy King had previously been very clear on his intentions, though, saying: ”I’m gonna dish out a whole lot of pain. I’m gonna put this f***er in the hurt locker for sure.
‘I got nothing to say, apart from there’s going to be a whole lot of hurt and pain in this fight you watch. That’s all I got to say. Talking’s been done. You know, the first fight I talked, I joked, through all my career.
‘This time I’m serious. I’m going to do some f****ng damage here on Saturday night. Watch me go to work on this f***er.’
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