By Scott Gilfoid: In what has to be seen as a bluff on his part, Tyson Fury (23-0, 17 KOs) says he’ll be keeping his eye on the January 17th fight between WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and unbeaten American Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) because he’d be interested in fighting the winner of the fight if he can’t get a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
Fury, 26, is the WBO mandatory challenger to Wladimir’s WBO strap after Fury beat Derek Chisora in a rematch last November. That means that there’s no chance that Wladimir can’t get around fighting Fury other than vacating his WBO title, which he obviously isn’t going to do.
If he was willing to defend his titles against the light hitting Francesco Pianeta then surely he’d be willing to fight a non-puncher like Fury.
“I’ll keep a close eye on that [Stiverne-Wilder], and I’d like to fight the winner if I don’t get Wladimir Klitschko,” Fury said via Secondsout.
If Wladimir doesn’t fight Fury, then he’ll either be stripped of the title or he’ll vacate it. However, I see there being no chance of that happening because Fury presents little in the way of a real threat to Wladimir due to his lack of power. I mean, if Corrie Sanders was still around and in his prime, then I could see Wladimir vacating his WBO title in order to avoid that fight because Sanders totally dominated Wladimir in their fight in 2003, but Fury has none of Sanders’ power, speed, or his southpaw stance.
Fury will be fighting on February 28th in a stay busy fight at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Supposedly, there looking for a top 15 contender to face him, but it’s not likely to be anyone really good. The top 15 is littered with weak heavyweights and guys that arguably have no business being ranked in the top 15. I think it’s safe to say that Fury won’t be pitted against a puncher on 2/28, because that would put him too much at risk of getting blasted out before he gets his title shot against Wladimir.
Fury thinks that Wladimir is mentally weak for some reason. “He’s mentally weak,” Fury said. “That’s the biggest one I need to know. That’s his biggest weakness – his mind.”
Whether Wladimir is mentally weak or isn’t, it’s doubtful that Fury will be able to exploit that weakness. For Fury to take advantage of Wladimir’s so-called mental weakness, he’ll have to be able to take his big power shots for much of the fight, and I don’t think Fury can do that. We saw Steve Cunningham drop Fury on his backside, and he’s not even a puncher.
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