By Scott Bells: Undefeated Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) is now number one at heavyweight owning 3 of the 4 major belts after defeating IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight at the ESPRIT Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany. While nobody could dispute the result or the scorecards, it was a poor fight to watch. The scores were 115-112, 115-112 and 116-111.
Immediately, people have stated how ‘shot’ Klitschko looked throughout the fight, which is true to some extent. However, that should not take away from the fact that Tyson Fury deserves alot of credit for devising and executing a game plan based around his strengths, namely in reach, height and speed.
My observation was that Klitschko seemed reluctant to let his hands go; at the start of a Klitschko fight this is quite common, with him looking to plant his feat and land early jabs before following it up with a right hand. He has been able to do this in the past due to stationary opponents who have allowed him to establish his distance and jab early (namely Kubrat Pulev, Alex Leapei etc). We saw against Bryant Jennings, a fighter who did move a little more that Wladimir took a little more time to settle and was sometimes bothered by the movement; against Fury, he never established any rhythm at all and was unable to plant his feat and commit to punches.
Fury, to his credit moved, created angles and used his own impressive jab (a jab that has never been perceived as a world-beating jab) to great effect, confusing the champion on occasions.
Wladimir was ultimately unable to adapt, and only started to establish himself in the 11th round when he started to let his hands go in desperation and caught Fury with a number of shots.
Fury’s questionable chin held up extremely well tonight – after the knockdown against Cunningham, many thought he would get knocked out tonight but he showed that he is a fighter who has improved immensely in a relatively short period of time.
So was it Wladimir being finished or Fury being brilliant; in truth it was clearly a bit of both. Credit should go to Fury for a huge win, and whilst some may argue that Fury made Wladimir look that bad, there were certainly recent signs that age was starting to catch up with him in recent fights. What will maybe be the most telling point is whether Wladimir exercises his rematch clause; to him, was it an off night or the end.
Time will tell, but certainly a clumsy, brash and sometimes inappropriate 18 stone Englishman is, for now, on top of the world.
Comments are closed.