Fury Defeats McDermott, Captures English heavyweight title

By Sean McDaniel: Heavyweight Tyson Fury (8-0, 7 KO’s) can sure talk the talk, but he failed to walk the walk against Big John McDermott (25-6, 16 KO’s) tonight, struggling to beat the fat journeyman by a questionable 10-round decision at the Brentwood Centre, in Brentwood. The fight was decided by referee Terry O’Conner, who gave it to the 21-year-old Fury by the score of 98-92.

Most ringside boxing fans had McDermott winning the fight, and were quite unhappy with the outcome of the fight. Fury, 6’7” failed on many levels in the fight, defensively, offensively and with his composure. One bad thing about this fight is that we’ll likely have to see a rematch between the two.

Fury said after the fight that he’d give McDermott a rematch if he wants one. It looks as if McDermott will want a rematch to try and avenge this defeat and prove that he’s the better fighter.

He looked over-matched and not ready for the offensive aggression that McDermott was bringing to him in the fight. McDermott had little problems with Fury’s jabs in the first four rounds, and either picked them off or walked through them to get to Fury.

Although Fury bragged ahead of time that he was going to knock McDermott out, it was McDermott who had the better power between the two. Fury looked weak and a little uncoordinated offensively. Let’s not twist things though. McDermott probably should have won the fight, but he hardly was sparking in there.

McDermott looked fat, slow and sloppy as anything. If this was a world class heavyweight McDermott was facing tonight, he would have been run over in one brutal round. He’s not good. However, he did appear to land the cleaner shots against a totally disorganized and clueless Fury. I thought Fury looked kind of like a basketball player with boxing gloves on. His form was poor, his power nowhere and his work rate abysmal.

No offense to McDermott. But the thought of seeing a rematch between these two fighters isn’t exactly appealing to me. Fury needs to go back to the drawing board and learn to fight. McDermott will beat Fury in rematch, because he proved for 10 rounds that he’s the better fighter. Fury only looked decent in the 9th and 10th rounds.

The rest of the time, McDermott was pounding Fury at will with right hands to the head and left hooks. If they fight against in four months or whenever, I doubt that Fury will have learned enough to beat McDermott by then. Fury is just not as good McDermott and not ready for a fighter as good as him right now.

Maybe Fury needs to work on how to deal with aggressive, pressure oriented fighters like McDermott in training camps and over a period of time, because Fury looked totally lost tonight with the pressure that McDermott was putting on him. Fury wasn’t handling it well at all and looked bewildered.

I expected that this would be an easy fight for Fury. He looked good in his seven previous fights, knocking them all out without too much trouble. He held himself in a confident manner and talked as if he was the best heavyweight on the planet, and not a fighter just starting out trying to learn his trade.

If I was Fury’s manager, I wouldn’t let him fight a rematch with McDermott. He’ll lose if he does and it’s pointless. Fury isn’t developed enough to fight opponents of McDermott’s ability at this time. Give Fury a couple of years fighting eight to ten round bouts against some easier opponents before putting him in with a fighter like McDermott.

By then, McDermott will likely be out of the sport, but it doesn’t matter. Fury needs to be learning and not being thrown into situations that he doesn’t have the boxing skills or the maturity for. He’s high on confidence but low on the actual skills needed to carry out his boasts.

7 Responses to “Fury Defeats McDermott, Captures English heavyweight title”