By Tim Royner: Greg Marriot, the fitness trainer for former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, strongly believes he can get his weight below 260 if he listens to him and follows his diet plan that he’s laid out for him.
Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) was at his best in his last fight against Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 in which he weighed in the 247 lbs. Fury is a long ways away from that weight. Fury’s weight ballooned into the 300s in his time out of the ring. He’s taken off nearly 60 pounds of fat, but he still a considerable amount of weight to lose before he’ll be at his best for his comeback.
Fury wants to challenge for a world title against IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2018. For Fury to have a chance of beating the 28-year-old Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs), he’s going to need to have his weight perfect, because a big part of his game for the fight will involve movement to keep away from 6’5”, 250 lb. Joshua’s big power punches.
”Yes. He got below 18 stone [252 lbs.] doing everything wrong. If he listens to me, he can get below 18 stone again,” said Marriot to skysports.com. ”I’m not saying it isn’t a long road. We want to get him to a maintenance weight so then we can push hard, and really take the weight off him. Rome wasn’t built in a day but it is definitely achievable.”
Fury wants to fight in the first quarter of this year. He’s got a lot of time to take off weight, but it depends on how heavy he is right now. Fury still looks very heavy right now. It might be asking too much for Fury to lose 15 pounds a month for the next 3 to 4 months to get ready for his first tune-up fight. Fury is likely to take several tune-up fights before he faces someone like Joshua. What Fury doesn’t need is to be totally drained from having burned a lot of weight in a hurry.
For boxing fans that have ever lost a lot of weight, it leaves a person weak in a lot of cases. For a world class athlete like Fury, he cannot afford to be in a weakened stage facing a powerhouse like Joshua, because he’ll get taken out right away. Fury needs to be trim, but with just enough power to make Joshua cautious of getting hit by him. Fury made Wladimir Klitschko respect his power in their fight in November 2015. Wladimir didn’t want to get hit by Fury after being countered with his hard right hands from close range early in the fight. Fury’s counter punches made Wladimir gun-shy with his right hand. Wladimir didn’t want to use his right as much as he normally does. For Fury to make Joshua hesitant to let his own power punches go, he’ll need to have enough power on his punches to make him fearful. Fury can’t be weakened from too much weight loss from his crash course diet that he’s on.
”To put on the show that Tyson wants, you have to be light so you can move for 12 rounds,” said Marriot.
Ideally, Fury would be better off using 2018 to slowly take off the weight and fight nothing but C-level tune-up opposition. Fury stands a better chance once he gets back in the ring with world class fighters if he uses this year to take off the weight and get his sharpness and conditioning back before he starts fighting the best. Fury can’t do what we saw Ricky Hatton do in his comeback. Hatton took off a massive amount of weight and then fought a good welterweight in Vyachaslav Senchenko in November 2012, and ended up getting knocked out in the 9th round by him. Hatton had been out of the ring for over 3 years. He didn’t even take a tune-up. Hatton went straight into the fight with Senchenko and was knocked out. Senchenko was just one-fight removed from being a welterweight world champion. Fury can’t be in too much of a hurry for his own comeback if he doesn’t want to end up like Hatton.
Fury was at his all-time worst in his fight against Joey Abell in February 2015. Fury came into that fight at a flabby 274 lbs. Fury still was able to knockout Abell, but that was only because it was a 2nd tier heavyweight and not a world class guy. Fury getting down to the 240s for his comeback would be a real surprise. I’m not sure that he can do it.
Former heavyweight world champion George Foreman got as low as 235 lbs. for his comeback to the ring in the 1980s for his fight with Dwight Muhammad Qawi. However, Foreman complained of being weak at that weight, so he fought most of the remainder of his comeback in the 250s. During Foreman’s first part of his career, he fought in the 220s, and he was powerful and a devastating puncher. But he got really fat after he retired from boxing in 1977, and he couldn’t take all the weight off without draining himself. Fury might have to be a little heavier for his comeback than he was previously if he wants to have enough energy to beat the guys he’s facing. What this means though is Fury probably won’t have the conditioning needed for him to move around the ring for 12 rounds like he previously used to do. Fury will need to adjust his game for him to be successful if he can no longer move.