It's fair to say there's no love lost between Fabio Wardley and Jarrell Miller.
The pair are due to clash on June 7 at Ipswich Town's home stadium Portman Road for the WBA 'interim' heavyweight title, with the fight to be streamed live on DAZN.
But both men nearly got into it two months early at Monday's press conference, which took place at Portman Road, as 'Big Baby' Miller (26-1-2, 22 KOs) shoved Wardley (18-0-1, 17 KOs) in the face following an onstage fracas which security had to diffuse.
Insults, accusations and threats were lobbed from both Wardley and Miller in each other's direction. The American even took the time to don the colours of Norwich City, Ipswich's East Anglian rivals.
Proceedings started off in routine fashion, with Wardley stating he would become 'undeniable' once on the pitch in eight weeks' time. Once Miller was given the floor, however, the atmosphere changed.
He said: "I'm gonna whoop his a-- I know frank is a good salesman, but he's f----d up. There's a reason I've been avoided for so many years, I'm a killer, real warriors travel anywhere, we're cut from a different cloth, I was respectful but then he made a r------d a-- diss song, 'big baby killer', where I come from you make a diss song, that's a death threat. You talk all that nonsense, I'm gonna f--k you up, you can smile all you want, you can kiss my a--."
Wardley supposedly has no knowledge of the diss track Miller speaks of.
"This diss track," he said. "This song thing he's talking about, I don't know about it, I don't know what it is, I don't know if he dreamt it."
But before that, things got really heated.
"There's a reason they call me big baby, google that, I make mother------s cry," Miller said, to which Wardley responded: "They call you big baby because you don't shut the f--k up, you need a pacifier in your mouth."
"Come make me shut up then," replied Miller.
Seconds later both Wardley and his opponent were on their feet squaring off with each other, with security doing their best to separate over 500 pounds of mass as promoter Frank Warren called for calm and measure.
Miller continued to gesticulate in Wardley's face and kept making reference to the diss song before using the tips of his fingers to swipe at his foe's mug.
Once the press conference resumed, following an onstage apology from Warren, Miller went off again.
"He ain't built like that bro, he's from Ipswich not Brooklyn," he said. "I ain't apologising for s--t, you not gonna make no diss track about me, you not gonna make no demands, suck my d--k. I'm f-----g you up bro.
"What do they expect? Fighters get disrespected all the time and they want to come here and play nice? A lot of disrespect happens you don't know about. If you push my buttons I'm gonna slap the s--t out of you, and they're pushing my buttons."
Wardley had the final word, promising to deal with Miller in emphatic fashion. "I thought 'who's the baddest man here?' and I picked him," he said.
"He says he's avoided, he took the Dubois fight on short notice, fair play, and you put on a decent performance, but I picked you, given you full camp and full notice, there's no excuses, you say people don't give you the opportunity, here it is. And to sweeten the deal, there's an interim belt there for you as well, turn up on the night, make it a show, make it entertaining, let's do this one for the fans.
"You're a one trick pony and the trick is s--t, we've seen it and I'm gonna put you out."
Wardley hasn't fought since a first-round knockout of Frazer Clarke back in October, while Miller was last in action two months before that in August.
The American controversially drew with Andy Ruiz Jr on the Terence Crawford-Israil Madrimov undercard in Los Angeles, though many observers believed him to be the victor.