By Scott Gilfoid: The much younger 27-year-old Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) was really patting himself on the back about his win over the 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in Fury’s appearance on Real Sports with Bryant Gumball on HBO. Fury beat Klitschko by an extremely close 12 round unanimous decision on November 28th last year in a fight that could have gone Wladimir’s way if he just throw some actual punches instead of standing like a frozen statue.
Fury says that he saved the boxing world by outing an end to Klitschko’s long reign as one of the heavyweight champions.
“I thought, ‘I’ve won the heavyweight championship of the world.’ Hands up straightaway. I looked at Wladimir’s face and I could see he knew he’d lost the fight,” Fury said on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. “His face told the story of the fight. He was cut to pieces. There was blood squirting out of him left, right and center. And I never had a mark on me. And I saved the world from a boring era of Klitschko.”
You have to wonder who is going to save the boxing world from a boring era of Fury fights, because he’s arguably no better than Wladimir when it comes to being entertaining in the ring. Fury may not hold like Wladimir, but he sure doesn’t make it exciting with his slapping punches. I don’t see Fury being able to hold onto his titles for anywhere near the same length of time that Wladimir did. Fury is kind of in the same position as IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin in that he’s seen as a vulnerable heavyweight with a huge target on him. All the top contenders want to fight Fury because they see him as beatable, and they obviously want to get a nice payday in the process of beating him. If a contender beats Fury, then they’ll likely get a rematch and a chance for a second big payday.
I think Fury is getting kind of carried away a little bit with his accomplishment. I mean, he barely won the fight in winning by the scores of 115-112, 116-111 and 115-112. What was so shocking about Fury’s win was how little Wladimir did. He threw only a tiny handful of punches the entire fight. I’ve never seen a heavyweight champion throw so few punches before, and it wasn’t because of anything Fury was doing.
Wladimir just looked scared and very, very old. Wladimir had the look of someone who should have retired from the sport at least a year ago if not two years. He didn’t look like a guy that had his skills intact any longer. What’s really sad is Fury barely beat Wladimir at his very worst at almost 40. Wladimir was there to be knocked out if Fury had thrown some punches himself, but he fought like he was handling some nitroglycerin and was afraid it was going to explode in his hands.
Fury and Klitschko will be facing each other in a rematch soon and I think Wladimir will win the fight without too many problems. He has more room to improve than Fury does due to his superior punching power, hand speed and boxing skills.
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