By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated heavyweight prospect Hughie Fury (7-0, 5 KO’s) stopped 39-year-old journeyman Ivica Perkovic (19-21, 14 KO’s) in a 5th round retirement on Friday night at the Fairways Hotel in Dundalk, Ireland. The heavy set Perkovic failed to come out for the 6th round after taking a barrage of body shots from the 6’6” Fury in the 5th round. Fury looked like a slow plodder in the fight, and nothing like what you’d like to see from a young heavyweight. He didn’t look like a young Wladimir Klitschko, Lennox Lewis or Deontay Wilder.
Hughie fought like a plodding older fighter without power and very one dimensional with his offense. The left hand was missing from Hughie offense. He might as well not even had his left because it was vestigial limb. The thing he did with it was jab.
It was hardly what you would call a fall given that Perkovic rarely threw any punches. He mostly just standing there in front of Hughie taking shots for the full 5 rounds. Every now and then, Perkovic would throw a jab or a fight hand, but the punches were spaced out with 30 second intervals. Perkovic was like a punching bag and this was not even close to being a real fight in the sense of the word.
As far Fury goes, he pretty much threw nothing but jabs and right hooks. For some reason, Hughie doesn’t really use his left hand for throwing power punches, unlike his cousin Tyson Fury, who uses both hands equally when punching. Hughie mostly just uses his jab and right hand and that’s it.
Hughie would typically come forward slowly, throwing a couple jabs followed by a right hand to the head or body. Once in close, Fury and Perkovic would clinch. While in the clinch, Hughie would throw rabbit punches to the back of Perkovic’s head quite frequently. I’m not quite sure why the referee didn’t stop the action and give Hughie a warning about the rabbit punches because that kind of thing wouldn’t fly if the fight were to take place in the U.S.
Out of the many rabbit punches I saw Hughie throw in the fight, I saw one warning given to him from the referee and that’s pretty disappointing because I would see Hughie disqualified for the rabbit shots by some referees. The thing is it wasn’t as if the fight was competitive. Why throw rabbit punches against a guy that is pretty much just a punching bag? I didn’t understand it. Hughie doesn’t seem to have clue one in how to fight someone in a clinch. You don’t nail them with rabbit punches; you throw upper cut and you throw punches.
In the 5th round, Hughie went all out, throwing body shots and head shots and really telegraphing everything he did. He threw a ton of body shots and left his head wide open for prolonged periods of time. Had he been in the ring with a heavyweight that could actually fight, I think Hughie would have been poleaxed by a right hand or left hook counter during this round because he really showed no defense at all as he went after Perkovic’s body. The form he showed in this round was just plain awful. It was sloppy stuff and not what you’d want to see from a young heavyweight.
Hughie looked desperate to try and get the knockout, but his power just wasn’t there and he really loading up on his shots. A young Wladimir, Lewis or Deontay would have likely blasted Perkovic out in the 1st round, yet Hughie was going all out and STILL unable to take him out despite loading up on everything he threw.
All in all, I think it was a less than impressive performance from Hughie. He looked sloppy, failed to use his left hand, showed little power, average hand speed and slow footwork. I thought he looked like a poor version or Tyson Fury, and I’m not in the least impressed with Tyson Fury as a fighter. He’s a great talker, but not a great fighter in my estimation.
Hughie wants to be the youngest heavyweight world champion, and he’s hoping to become a world champion by the age of 20. I just don’t see that as a realistic option for him. Unless Hughie improves dramatically in the next two years, I think his chances of becoming a world champion at 20, or even 30 or 40, are slim and none. The spark just doesn’t seem to be there.
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