By Scott Gilfoid: American talent Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he previously bet on British heavyweight Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) to beat his last opponent Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) last November despite the fact that he’d never saw any of Fury’s fights. Mayweather liked the odds for the fight, so he made a bet on it.
However, now Mayweather would like to see Fury step up and face unbeaten American Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) for his WBC heavyweight title. Mayweather says he’s not sure which fighter to pick in that match-up.
Well, if Mayweather get a chance to find out who to pick in a Wilder-Fury fight after the two of them face their next opponents. Deontay will be defending his title against #1 WBC mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) in a fight that is being worked on for May 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. That fight has KO written all over it for Wilder. Povetkin was dropped four times by an aging Wladimir three years ago. If Wladimir was able to put Povetkin down four times, you can only imagine how many times Deontay will be able to put him down.
Fury’s rematch with Wladimir has yet to be scheduled, but Fury thinks it will happen in the summer at some point. Let’s hope so, because it would be a pity if that’s the only fight that Fury has in 2016. Seriously, I can see that happening. If Fury twiddles his thumbs for half the year, he’ll end up with just one fight in 2016, and might not even win that against the soon to be 40-year-old Wladimir.
“I’ve only seen Fury fight once and I’d never seen him before but I bet on him because it was good odds,” Mayweather said to the manchestereveningnews.co.uk. “We have a heavyweight over in America making a lot of news called Deontay Wilder and that would be a good fight. Deontay is a heavy hitter and a tough opponent so I don’t know who I would bet on in that fight.”
My suggestion for Mayweather is for him to sit down and watch Fury and Wilder’s next fights before he makes any hasty decisions about who to pick in a fight between them. The last thing you need Mayweather to be doing is making wild guesses about who will win. I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me who would win in a fight between Wilder and Fury, but then again I’ve studied them both and I know the talent or lack thereof that Fury has.
A fight between Fury and Wilder would be HUGE no matter where it takes place. It would obviously be a pay-per-view fight in the United States and the UK, and I could see it opening doors for Wilder to turn him into a tremendous star in the U.S. As for Fury, the fight will likely end badly for him with him getting knocked out and send back into the contender ranks.
In the best possible world, Fury will beat Wladimir in their rematch this year, and Wilder will take care of business in his title defense against Povetkin. After that, we’ll see a big unification fight between Deontay and Fury. Unfortunately, I don’t see it working out that way.
I think Wladimir is going to mess things up by knocking out Fury in the same way that Evander Holyfield stopped Buster Douglas years ago. Douglas was the one-hit wonder who head beaten Mike Tyson by a 10th round knockout in a huge upset in his previous fight in February 1990. Eight months later, a flabby Douglas was stopped in the 3rd round by Holyfield in October 1990. Douglas’s career was never the same after that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fury comes into the rematch with Wladimir flabby and out of shape after having tasted success last November. The success and the boatloads of money that Fury got for beating Wladimir will likely have a negative effect on his training and his hunger to work hard. I think Fury is going to be distracted, and not be mentally into the fight the way that Wladimir will. As such, I think Wladimir is going to poleaxe Fury and stop him within six rounds to reclaim his IBO/WBA/WBO titles. Wladimir can’t get his IBF title because Fury already lost that belt after failing to defend it against his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov.
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