Peter Fury says he had problems finding Hughie an opponent

By Boxing News - 03/02/2016 - Comments

fury5656By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Peter Fury says they had a number of top class opponents they offered good money to fight unbeaten heavyweight prospect Hughie Fury (18-0, 10 KOs) for his March 26 fight, but they weren’t interested.

As such, Hughie will be fighting 29-year-old journeyman Nagy Aguilera (20-9, 14 KOs) on 3/26 for the vacant WBC International heavyweight title at the Wembley Arena in London, UK. Aguilera appears to be a much better puncher than Hughie.

Aguilera is probably going to need to chase Hughie around the ring if he wants to land anything because Hughie does not like to mix it up. He’s what you call a hit and run type of fighter. He also likes to do a lot of holding in the Wladimir Klitschko type style.

It’s obviously not an ideal opponent for the young 21-year-old Hughie if he wants to impress boxing fans, because Aguilera is arguably a step down from Hughie’s opponent Andriy Rudenko from last year in February 2015. But then again, you can make an argument that Hughie has been going downhill in terms of quality ever since the Rudenko fight.

In Hughie’s last three fights since then, he’s beaten Larry Olubamiwo, Emilio Ezequiel Zarate and George Arias. I rate Rudenko as a much better fighter than those guys, and I think he’s a far better fighter than the 6’3 ½” Aguilera is. If Peter Fury really is offering a lot of money to the top class fighters to face Hughie, then it suggests to me that he’s picking the wrong guys. I don’t see anything in Hughie that would scare off any of the level guys.

So if Peter isn’t able to get the high level fighters to face Hughie, then it tells me that he’s either not offering enough cash for the fights, or he’s picking guys that already have planned fights. It’s not use in Peter trying to setup a fight between the highly rated Alexander Ustinov and Hughie if Ustinov has other plans.

“We had a number of top-class opponents lined up to face Hughie, but, despite being offered great money, they wouldn’t sign,” said Peter Fury. “We decided to take the Aguilera fight because the WBC were happy to sanction it as a WBC International heavyweight title fight and we see it as a genuine test; the fact the WBC sanctioned the contest, and turned down others put to them, shows what they think of Aguilera as an opponent.”

My question is why is Hughie wasting his time going after trinket titles like the WBC International strap? I don’t see any value in a strap like that. I mean, if Hughie is going to go after a minor league belt, shouldn’t he try for the EBU heavyweight title or the British strap?

Hughie would only have to wait out Anthony Joshua to give up the British title before he can win that belt. If Hughie wants to fight for the EBU title, he would need to fight the winner of the Kubrat Pulev vs. Dereck Chisora fight. Believe me, if Hughie can’t beat either of those guys, then he’s not going to go very far in the sport.

Aguilera was recently beaten by Gerald Washington and Dominic Breazeale. Aguilera did win his last fight in beating little known fighter Marcin Rekowski last September. Hughie is coming off of a 1st round knockout win over journeyman Olubamiwo.

“Nobody who has boxed Aguilera has ever had an easy time with him. He’s given them all a hard fight,” said Peter. “Even the Olympian Breazeale was given all he could handle for eight rounds. Aguilera gave him fits. He also troubled Adamek and had an absolute war with Arreola.”

It’s true that Arreola and Aguilera fought in a war, but it’s also true that Arreola destroyed him in just three rounds. That fight took place five years ago in 2011 when Aguilera was a lot younger. He doesn’t look like the same fighter compared to then.

I get the feeling that Peter is trying to build up Aguilera in order to make Hughie look better after he beats him. If Peter can talk up the journeyman Aguilera enough, some boxing fans might be impressed after Hughie defeats the pudgy looking fighter.



Comments are closed.