By Scott Gilfoid: After all the hoopla about what was supposed to have been an exciting contest between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) and #1 WBO Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) last Saturday night, the results of the fight were less than earth shattering. Fury won the fight by a very dull 12 round unanimous decision without even landing 100 punches.
It’s unheard of for a fighter to land less than 100 punches in a 12 round fight, but Fury actually did there. The amount of punches landed from both fighters was a complete and utter embarrassment. If you had the chance to listen to the HBO talking heads complain about the lack of action in the fight, then you got some amusement because they were all bellyaching something fierce, and you can’t blame them.
Heck, both Fury and Klitschko fought like they had their eyes closed for the full 12 rounds, as they were whiffing on punches left and right. Wladimir just looked terrified for the full 12 rounds, and showed zero desire to throw any punches even with his older brother Vitali Klitschko trying to give him pep talks in the corner between rounds.
Fury landed only 86 of 371 punches for a connect percentage of 23%, according to CompuBox. Klitschko was just as awful in connecting on only 52 of 231 punches for a connect percentage of 23 percent. In Wladimir’s prime of his career, he was capable of landing over 50 punches per round. To see him only landing 52 punches in a 12 round fight last night showed you pretty clearly how much the soon to be 40-year-old Wladimir has aged in the last two years.
I’m not giving Fury credit for Wladimir’s anemic punch stats, because if you looked at Wladimir’s last fight against Bryant Jennings last April, you’ll see that Wladimir was just as poor in that fight as he was last night. Watch the Klitschko-Jennings fight a second time, and you’ll notice immediately that Wladimir threw almost zero right hands in the fight, and the ones he did throw missed badly, as if his eye-hand coordination was completely gone. It was like watching an old baseball hitter in his 40s unable to connect with any kind of pitch. It’s always sad to see an old hitter that whiffs on everything, even off speed stuff that he should be able to catch up to.
A blubbering and highly emotional Fury said this after the fight last night via ESPN.com “This is a dream come true. We worked so hard for this. I’ve done it. It’s hard to come to foreign countries and get decisions. It just means so much to me to come here and get the decision.”
Well, Fury has got the win and a rematch that goes along with it. This means that Fury will get a huge payday in his next fight with Klitschko in early 2016. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fury lose that fight, because he barely was able to beat Klitschko with him throwing only 231 punches.
In a rematch, you can bet that Wladimir will double the amount of shots he throws in the fight, and his superior power will likely result in him beating Fury the next time around. I’m just saying. Even an over-the-hill Klitschko can beat Fury when he has the sense enough to know that he need to average more than 19 punches thrown per round.
You’re not going to beat anyone averaging only 19 punches per round like Klitschko did last night against Fury. That’s why I see Wladimir working on increasing his punch output for the rematch and coming in and whipping Fury the second time around. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Fury does beat Klitschko again.
Even if Fury does beat Klitschko once again, where does Fury go from there? He’s got a lot of unpleasant choices that he would be presented with. Fury would likely need to face WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder immediately to get the most cash for his next fight. Fury doesn’t have anyone else unless he wants to throw a bone to the winner of the Dillian Whyte vs. Anthony Joshua fight.
Personally, I think Fury vs. Wilder is the bigger fight, because Wilder is a world champion and it would give Fury an opportunity to win the final world heavyweight title not in his possession. If Fury could somehow beat Wilder, he would get bragging rights for saying he’s the best heavyweight in the division if only for a short period of time. Fury vs. Wilder would likely sellout Wembley Stadium in London, and it would be huge on Sky Box Office PPV.
“I told the world I would beat him,” Fury said. “And I did.”
Fury won the fight by the scores 115-112, 115-112 and 116-111. I have no disagreement with the 115-112 score. Fury was a little better than Klitschko in this fight, but definitely not much better than him.
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