By Scott Gilfoid: #7 WBC, #8 WBC, heavyweight contender Tyson Fury (21-0, 15 KO’s) will be facing 39-year-old Argentinian journeyman Gonzalo Omar Basile (61-8, 28 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on February 15th at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK.
Basile has basically fought pretty all of his career fighting in Argentina against weak opposition. Despite him fighting weak opponents, Basile has been beaten recently by Luis Oscar Juarez, Artur Szpilka, Emilio Ezequiel Zarate and Marcelo Luiz Nascimento. Basile’s loss to Nascimento was a 1st round knockout in 2010. The real sad part about this is that Fury knocked out Nasimento in the 5th round in in February 2011.
You see where I’m going with this? If Basile was knocked out in the 1st round by Nascimento, then Fury might as well be fighting Nasimento again rather than the guy he knocked out in 1 round. In other words, what we have here is another wasted fight for the 25-year-old Fury, but then again Basile fits in nicely with the type of opposition that Fury has fought his entire career. This isn’t a step down for Fury, but rather the status quo for him.
The good news is that Basile has won his last five fights. The bad news is the guys he’s beaten have mostly had God awful records.
Fury just finished flushing down the drain 8 months of his career in wasting time trying to fight David Haye. Both scheduled fights fell through after Haye fell apart physically from one injury after another until there was no point in persisting in this waste of time. Fury could have fought Kubrat Pulev in an IBF eliminator during that time frame, but he chose the Haye fight. As you can see it wasn’t the smartest move Fury could have made. Instead of sitting pretty waiting for a title shot against Wladimir in 2012, Fury is fighting a 40ish journeyman on February 15th.
By facing a journeyman with a whole mess of losses on his resume, Fury is putting himself in a position where he’s going to look really bad if he gets knocked out cold by this guy. The 6’6″ Basile isn’t a good fighter, but he can punch a little bit and if he taps Fury on his fragile jaw, we could see Fury drop for the 10 round. Heck, little Steve Cunningham had Fury on his backside last April and ready to go. Had Cunningham had any power at all, he’d have Finished Fury off. Basile’s a better puncher than Cunningham, and he might ruin Fury’s dream fight against Wladimir Klitschko if he nails him with a good shot.
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