By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Hughie Fury (17-0, 9 KOs) picked up his 9th knockout of his career on Saturday night in stopping 34-year-old journeyman Emilio Ezequiel Zarate (18-15-3, 9 KOs) in the 2nd round of a scheduled eight round bout at the City Academy Sports Centre, in Bristol, Avon, United Kingdom.
The 6’6 Hughie nailed Zarate with a clubbing right hand to the left side of his head, causing the Argentinian fighter to fall down face first on the canvas where he clutched the left side of his head in pain.
Initially, it looked like Hughie had nailed Zarate with a rabbit shot, but replay it was clear that he had nailed him to the left side of his head. The referee Marcus McDonnell halted the fight at 1:05 of the 2nd round. Zarate stayed down on the canvas for a considerable amount of time afterwards, as he looked to be in pain from the shot he’d absorbed from the 231 pound Hughie. The punch might have hit him in his left ear, because a shot like that normally wouldn’t cause a fighter to hold his hand to the side of his head for so long.
Overall, I wasn’t impressed with Hughie. He fought with his hands down by his trunks for most of the two round fight, moving his upper body like he was clowning around against a guy that was totally over-matched. Hughie was clowning a no-hoper type fighter, and it was just of putting to say the least.
Every once in a while, Hughie would flick out a slow jab that snapped Zarate’s head back. I only saw Zarate attempt one punch through the entire two round fight, and that was a right hand that badly missed. This guy was just terrible. Near the end of the 1st round, Hughie finally sat down one a left-right combination that landed cleanly, but other than that, it was pretty much nothing but occasional jabs from Hughie.
In the 2nd round, Hughie went after Zarate in nailing him with some decent right hands. The punch were looping shots that had very little in the way of form. The punches connected because Zarate had no defense. I wouldn’t like to see Hughie throw those kinds of looping punches against any of the top 15 contenders in the heavyweight division, because they’d nail him with straight punches and likely clean his clock. Hughie finally dropped Zarate with a right hand to the side of his head. The shot wasn’t that big of a punch, but it just looked like Zarate didn’t want to be there tonight.
Overall, I didn’t see much improvement in Hughie’s punching power from his past fights. He still looks like a weak puncher, and he’s pretty slow as well. Like I said before, Hughie leaves himself open when he throws his shots, and he is just too easy to hit right now at this point in his career.
I must say this; Hughie’s weight is really fluctuating a lot between fights. In his last fight against George Arias, he weighed 217lbs and that was only four months ago. Hughie put on 13 pounds in just four months, and it looked like all muscle. That’s a lot of weight for a fighter to put on in such a hurry. Hughie is really bulking up quickly. I wonder how heavy he’ll be for his next fight.
The fight is only two weeks away on November 28th, but Hughie is starting to really pack on the pounds. It would be interesting to see if he winds up at 250+ like Anthony Joshua, who also has put on a lot of weight in a hurry. In favor of Hughie putting on weight, because right now he’s too much of a feather-fisted puncher at this point in his career, and he needs to build up his power somehow.
The shots that he was hitting Zarate with tonight were bouncing off of him with zero effect until he nailed him in the ear area and might have punctured his eardrum rather than hurt him from the concussive force of the blow.
With the quick win, Hughie is now able to move on to his next fight on November 28th against 36-year-old journeyman Nicholai Firtha on the undercard of the Wladimir Klitschko vs. Tyson Fury card on Sky Box Office from the ESPRIT Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Other boxing results on the card:
Andrew Selby TKO 2 Jozsef Ajtai
Nick Blackwell UD 12 Jack Arnfield
Craig Kennedy TKO 6 Tamas Bajzath
Young Fury pts 4 Imantas Davidaitis
Yusuf Safa TKO 4 Jiri Jaros
Tim Cutler pts 4 Alec Bazza
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