By Scott Gilfoid: The boxing world is going to find out what the tall 6’6” heavyweight Hughie Fury (19-0, 10 KOs) is made of this Saturday night in his fight against Fred Kassi (18-4-1, 10 KOs) in their 10 round contest for the vacant WBO International heavyweight title at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK.
I won’t be surprised in the least if we see a controversial decision in this fight. I really hope we don’t see Kassi, the visiting fighter, on the receiving end of a questionable outcome because that won’t help Hughie any. Hughie has the size to win, but size didn’t help the 6’7″ Dominic Breazeale against Kassi last September. Breazeale has more physical gifts than Hughie, and yet he was getting nailed by big power shots from Kassi all night long.
This is a match where the 21-year-old Hughie can either coming out looking like the real thing or like an amateur. Even if Hughie wins the fight, he can wind up looking bad because he has to win in style. We can’t see Hughie winning around the ring all night long like he did in his ugly to watch decision victory over Andriy Rudenko last year in February 2015.
It won’t present a pretty picture if the 6’6” Hughie is seen running from the 6’0” Kassi to avoid contact. Hughie needs to show that he can take the attack against his smaller foes because he’s not going to be able to run against the taller, longer-armed heavyweights that will have little trouble figuring out Hughie’s hit and run style of fighting.
Kassi has four losses and a draw on his resume, but I think his record should be a heck of a lot better than that. Kassi’s 10 round decision loss to Dominic Breazeale last September was a controversial one with Kassi clearly getting the better of the 2012 U.S Olympian. Before that, Kassi was arguably robbed of a win over Chris Arreola in July of last year in a fight that was scored a draw. I don’t know of too many people that saw the Kassi vs. Arreola fight that thought Arreola deserved a draw out of that fight. I had Kassi winning a clear decision. Kassi also has a controversial loss to Kendrick Releford in 2010. I thought Kassi won that fight too and landed the cleaner shots throughout.
Hughie fancies himself as a future heavyweight champion. I don’t see the talent there unfortunately. He’s all arms and legs but with no punching power. I think Hughie’s management are going to continue to match him slowly to keep him from losing.
If Hughie gets past Kassi this Saturday, and that’s a big if, I see his promoters being very careful with him for the next two or three years before they eventually match him against someone decent. Even then, I think it’ll be someone that they feel certain he can beat. In other words, I think Hughie won’t face a real test until he gets a title shot.
Hughie’s problem is he doesn’t have any punching power whatsoever. He’s still young, but I don’t think he’s going to do well when he’s put in the ring with hard punchers like Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz and Anthony Joshua. Hughie has the power of Tyson Fury, and that’s not going to work in this day and age in the heavyweight division. It might work to keep Hughie as one of the contenders for a number of years, but I can’t see him winning a real world title unless he can find some punching power somewhere and some hand speed. right now, Hughie is deficient in both of those areas. You can be missing in one of those areas, but not both like we see with Hughie.
Prediction: Hughie by very controversial decision over Kassi.