By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBO Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) will finally be getting his world title shot against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (23-0, 18 KOs) on September 23 at the Manchester Arena, in Manchester, England. Hughie will be 23 and having been out of action for almost 2 years. The World Boxing Organization is still letting Hughie keep his No.1 spot in their rankings despite his long period of inactivity.
Hughie hasn’t fought since last year in April with his ugly 7th round technical decision win over journeyman Fred Kassi. Hughie has been out of the ring with medical problems ever since.
This arrangement for the Parker-Fury fight to take place in Manchester, England is a far better deal for the young Hughie than the previously scheduled May 6 fight between the two fighters at the Vector Arena in New Zealand. That fight would have put Hughie in a tough position where he might have needed a knockout in order to win the fight.
Considering that Hughie isn’t much of a puncher, his chances of winning the fight would have been very, very slim. But with the fight now taking place in Hughie’s home country, it’s Parker who is now in the position where he might need a knockout for him to win the fight.
It’s not a great deal for Parker, the WBO champion, to have to fight in Hughie’s hometown in Manchester. Hopefully there isn’t a robbery on September 23. That would be a real shame for Parker. Heck, even if he has a rematch clause in the contract for the fight, he’ll still likely wind up fighting Hughie in the UK for the second fight.
It’s too bad they couldn’t have picked a neutral venue to stage the fight so that there wouldn’t be any chances of a controversial decision. Parker has so much to lose if he gets beaten by Hughie. There’s a big money unification fight that Parker would potentially be losing out against in a fight with IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua or WBC champion Deontay Wilder.
This fight has mismatch written all over it. Hughie can’t punch, and he’s coming off months of inactivity. Even if Hughie was active and injury free and without his health problems, he would still be really asking for trouble against a big puncher like the 6’4” Parker. But with all the things wrong with Hughie, he’s going to be lucky if he can make it 5 rounds with Parker in this fight.
The good news for the boxing fans is there will be some closure finally. Parker can finally move on once he gets Hughie out of his hair to bigger and better things. Hopefully the next time Parker has a mandatory challenger, he’ll be able to make it into the ring in a timely manner without the fight being delayed without end.
The 6’6” Fury had a back injury that derailed his May 6 fight with parker. It was some kind of lower back injury Hughie suffered. Presumably the back injury is healed enough for Hughie to go through with the fight against Parker in September. There’s no word what the WBO will do if Hughie’s back flares up on him again. Does the WBO keep postponing the fight or do they replace Hughie with someone else? It’s going to be interesting to see what they do.
“I’ve waited so long for this chance,” said Hughie. ”I’m going to shock the world and prove all my doubters wrong and what better place to do it than in my home city of Manchester. Parker is a good fighter and I’ve no doubt we’ll both bring our A-game on fight night. The fight’s on! I can’t wait to be crowned world champion.”
Well, just going by what I saw from Hughie in his two toughest fights of his career against Fred Kassi and Andriy Rudenko, I don’t see him doing well against Parker. Hughie’s fighting style of mostly jab, pot shot and clinch in that order. Hughie does a lot of holding. He’ll throw a jab or a pot shot, and then fall forward to a clinch. It’s the old punch and grab technique that we’ve seen from countless fighters.
The finesse fighters often use the punch and grab technique to tie up their more powerful opponents in order to stall out the rounds. Sadly, it works in boxing, mostly because there are so few good referees that penalize for the holding. Hughie seems to have that technique down well.
Parker is going to need to learn how to fight on the inside for him to be able to keep Hughie from grabbing him in a clinch all night long because it could be a long night if he doesn’t do something to try and limit all the holding.
I wonder how Parker and his management feel about them now having to come to the UK to fight the challenger Hughie. If they’re on board with this move without hard feelings, then tells you a lot about their class. Some fighters and their management would be furious at having to change the venue from their home country to the home country of the challenger.
It’s not as if Hughie has been active and beating highly talented fighters in the last year or two. Hughie hasn’t been busy.
Here are the fighters Hughie has beaten since 2015:
– Fred Kassi – Journeyman
– Dominic Guinn – Journeyman
– Larry Olubamiwo – Journeyman
– Emilio Ezequiel Zarate – Journeyman
– George Arias – Journeyman
– Andriy Rudenko
The only good fighter that Hughie has fought in his career is Rudenko, who he spent most of the night clinching. That was an ugly fight to watch. Hughie would throw a pot shot and then fall forward into a clinch. Rudenko didn’t seem to know what to do. He was like Sergey Kovalev in his 2 fights with Andre Ward. Rudenko didn’t know how to fight on the inside well enough to keep Hughie from grabbing him repeatedly.
Parker is going to have to do something to limit the amount of clinches that Hughie initiates in the fight. I doubt the referee will do much to control the holding by Hughie. If I was Parker’s trainer, I’d spent the entire camp working on fighting on the inside so that I could keep Hughie from grabbing so much.
I would then use the other part of the camp going over chasing techniques in order to get Parker ready to chase Hughie around the ring on September 23, because I see him doing a lot of running.
Hughie will be taking back to back tune-up fights on July 8 and July 15 of next month against opponents still to be determined. Hughie’s July 8 fight will be a 6 round fight at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. Hughie’s next fight after that on July 15 will be at Winter Gardens in Blackpool.
Parker recently defended his WBO title against replacement opponent Razvan Cojanu on May 6 in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Vodafone Events Centre in New Zealand. The final scores were 117-110, 117-110 and 119-108. Cojanu is a former sparring partner for Parker. It was not a good performance by Parker, who struggled with the size and trickiness of the 6’7 ½” Cojanu, who seemed very comfortable with the fighting style of Parker.
Prediction
I hate to say it but I see Parker making easy work of Hughie on September 23. Parker will train for a knockout so that he doesn’t wind up losing a controversial decision, and I see him blasting Hughie to smithereens in this fight. In other words, it’s going to be a massacre of the highest order. I’m just saying.