By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBO heavyweight contender Tyson Fury (23-0, 17 KOs) is fighting what he hopes will be an easy tune-up bout tonight against #3 WBO Christian Hammer (17-3, 10 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Fury, 26, is saying that he may retire from boxing if he loses the fight.
While Fury didn’t say he would definitely retire if he loses the fight, he is saying he may retire. I’m not sure how Fury could explain away a loss to Hammer, as this is a guy with a ranking that is very, very, very generous by the World Boxing Organization.
If you’ve seen Hammer fight before, you might wonder what on earth the WBO was thinking when they gave this guy a #3 ranking with their organization. To be sure, none of the other sanctioning bodies has Hammer ranked in the top 15, yet the WBO has him ranked #3 for some odd reason.
To me, Hammer looks like journeyman material and about the same level as Fury’s recent opponent Joey Abell. I rate Dereck Chisora as a much better fighter than Hammer, and I don’t rate Chisora as top tier heavyweight.
“If I can’t beat Christian Hammer I’m going nowhere and may as well retire. If I can’t knock him out with one clean punch then something’s seriously wrong. I’m on a mission to become world heavyweight champion.” Said Fury.
It would be a pity if Fury got distraught about a loss to Hammer tonight, and then went and retired off the loss. Even if it’s a short term retirement, it’ll make Fury look really bad in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans, as he’ll be seen as a quitter. I can’t see Fury being able to come back from a loss like this to ever amount to anything in the division.
Fury isn’t a knockout artist and he doesn’t have good punching power. It looks like his recent stoppage wins over the 2nd tier Abell, Chisora and Steve Cunningham have planted ideas into Fury’s head, making him think he’s a big puncher. He’s clearly not a puncher.
Fury is more of a slapper than a puncher, and he doesn’t seem to throw his punches correctly. I see a lot of slaps and backhanded punches instead of him landing with the proper form.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Fury once he gets inside the ring with IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko later on this year. It’ll be a fight matching Fury’s slapping shots against Wladimir’s much harder punches. I can’t see Fury lasting more than 4 of 5 rounds at best.
WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, who Fury has talked about wanting to fight in the near future, thinks Fury is mainly interested in getting big paydays. Wilder sees Fury as an easy knockout victory when/if their fight ever takes place.
Unfortunately, Wladimir is likely to take Fury out of commission with a knockout win over him this year. It’s going to take Fury at least two to three years to come back from that knockout loss, so I don’t expect to see Fury vs. Wilder until at least 2018, possibly 2019.
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