By Scott Gilfoid: UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez finally got around to answering unbeaten heavyweight contender Tyson Fury’s challenge of a fight by telling him that if Fury wants to fight him he’ll have to become a UFC fighter and basically work his way up to get a title shot in the sport. In other words, Velasquez isn’t going to fight Fury in a boxing match and he’s not going to let an unskilled boxer fight him in an MMA fight.
Speaking with espn.com, Velasquez said “I’m not a boxer. I’m a mixed martial artist, and if he [Fury] wants to fight, he can go into UFC and work his way up like everybody else does. Nothing is given to you in this world…Don’t talk about it, go ahead and do it.”
Do you think Fury would actually attempt to work his way up the food chain in UFC? Fat chance that happens. Fury would likely get weeded out early on in the sport against the lower level fighters with wrestling backgrounds. Fury wouldn’t likely even get to the guys that actually know a little Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai before he’s beaten over and over again.
The tall skinny guys like Fury don’t do very well in MMA. If you look around at the successful heavyweights in the UFC competition, they’re mostly around 6-foot tall or a little over that. They’ve got the short wrestler legs, cauliflower ears and years and years of experience in wrestling starting from high school.
Fury can’t compete with those guys because it takes a long time to pick up MMA skills and you really need a certain type of a body to do well. Fury is all arms and legs, and the wrestlers do well against those types of fighters. Fury would constantly be getting taken down to the mat by fighters shooting for his long legs, and once he’s down they’ll likely have an easy time getting him to tap out from one of their ground and pound or submission holds.
It looks like Fury’s hope of getting Velasquez in the boxing ring has been shot down. I can’t believe Fury would waste time calling out an MMA fighter to face him a boxing ring. It doesn’t make sense. However, Fury can always try his luck with Michael Bisping.
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