By John Stevens: All I keep reading lately is how Tyson Fury has his sights on Klitschko to the exclusion of all other fighters, including new champ Deontay Wilder. If this is really the case then it seems like he’ll have a long wait, 2016 at the earliest, as Wladimir has a tricky bout against Bryant Jennings in April, as well as mentioning he is interested in fighting Shannon Briggs thereafter – thus – it seems like Fury is not really a priority in his plans at this time.
Tyson has hinted that he intends to ‘stay busy’ until he gets his shot. This is a rather worrying thing to say as ‘stay busy’ implies that he will be taking bouts that shouldn’t really trouble him too much (much like the upcoming Christian hammer fight) – if he should take this path for the next 2 or 3 fights before he gets his chance then I feel he is making a big mistake, and here’s why;
The bottom line is – Tyson really does need to pit himself against some serious, live contenders before he sets foot in the ring with a great champion like Wladimir. I’m not going to say the man hasn’t beaten some good fighters because he has (Steve Cunningham especially) but overall he hasn’t been in consistently high enough company to prepare himself for what he would face when he climbs in with the steel hammer
Bryant Jennings for example, who gets his chance next, has, for his last three fights, beaten very high ranking opposition in Mike Perez, Artur Szpilka and Andrey Fedosov – as well as a former world champion in Sergei Liakovich. Fury hasn’t met such level of opposition (Cunningham excepted) – albeit he is facing Christian Hammer next, who is world ranked – but Hammer is not, with all due respect, up to the level of the 3 aforementioned fighters that Jennings has recently fought, and I feel that he has been very carefully chosen by Furies management because they know that to be the case
I’m not trying to be disrespectful to Fury at all because I happen to believe he is definitely a world class operator and has been consistently improving with each fight. When he first came on the scene he was awkward, gangly and ineffective looking. I gave him no chance of progressing very far. However he has proved me and many others wrong with his career thus far. The win over Cunningham was a very good one, borne out by Cunningham’s incredible victory over Amir Mansour recently – and he handled Derek Chisora with total ease last time out. From a big, clumsy looking guy he has really transformed himself. He looks very solid. He packs a clubbing, if not spectacularly powerful punch, is deceptively skilful and knows very well how to use his size to the best of its advantages – Overall he is looking more and more like a very imposing unit in there with each fight he has.
However before he steps in with Wlad I feel that he most definitely does not need ‘stay busy’ fights! He has to face some top contenders. And there’s plenty out there to accommodate him! Ustinov for one. Mariusz Wach – another giant who is back on the ascendancy after his own defeat by Wlad, is another. Carlos Takam, Luis Ortiz, Alexander Povetkin, Bermane Stiverne, Chris Arreola, Andy Ruiz….the list is very long.
The bottom line is, if he doesn’t get ready for Klitschko by facing top-tier opposition then he is going to lose and lose very badly. Perhaps he doesn’t care. Perhaps the multi-million payday is enough. Perhaps that’s all that matters. I don’t know…I do get the feeling however that Fury himself is a proud individual who doesn’t want to lose. Therefore I do hope he proves himself in his next 2 or 3 fights against such men as some of the names I’ve mentioned. A few easy fights will do nothing to improve his chances as he will not be ready at all for the likes of Wladimir and will get badly hurt. Surely deep in his heart he must know this
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