By William Mackay: Unbeaten heavyweight contender Tyson Fury (18-0, 13 KO’s) will be taking another soft opponent in his next fight on July 7th against Vinny Maddalone (35-7, 26 KO’s) at the Hand Arena, Clevedon, Somerset, UK. Maddalone, 38, is just another one of the long line of beatable fighters that #7 WBC Fury has dined on in four years as a pro.
With all the hype that is being made about the 24-year-old Fury, you’d think that he would be in much bigger tests than this, especially with him easily beating Dereck Chisora last year. That win should have catapulted Fury into bigger fights against the top contenders in the division so that Fury could get bigger fights, learn more and make a name for himself quickly. Unfortunately, Fury has regressed in terms of competition, facing the following B and/or C level opponents in the last year: Nicolai Firtha, Neven Pajkic and Martin Rogan.
Fury’s excuse for facing the 41-year-old Rogan, who hasn’t been all that active in the past three years, was that Fury felt it was a big deal to try and capture the Irish heavyweight title. For Fury, that was his Olympics. He never fought in the Olympics, so beating the 41-year-old Rogan was the next best thing to accomplishing that. That right there suggests that Fury is underachieving for some reason. Whether it was his decision to face Rogan, Pajkic and Firtha is unclear. If it was Fury’s decision to face those guys, then his promoter needs to sit him down and try and convince him about the importance in facing opposition with at least a pulse. He needs to fight better guys so that he can keep improving if nothing else.
Maddalone has decent power. He’s knocked out his last two opponents Mike Sheppard and Chris Koval. That’s the good news. That bad news is that those guys are 2nd tier fighters and it’s not a big deal that Maddalone was able to beat them.
For Maddalone to have any chance of beating Fury, he’s going to have to really jump on him early by going all out looking for a knockout. Fury starts slowly and can be hurt early. If Maddaloen can hurt him he’ll need to go for a KO before he gasses out.
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