Fury Stops Ellis: Is Tyson Ready for Rogan, Skelton or Williams?

By Boxing News - 04/12/2009 - Comments

fury35334By William Mackay: Unbeaten heavyweight Tyson Fury (5-0, 5 KOs) kept his perfect knockout record intact with a quick 1st round knockout over British journeyman Mathew Ellis (20-7, 9 KOs), knocking him out in 48 seconds of the 1st round. Ellis, 35, had fancied his chances against the 20-year-old Fury before the bout, saying that Fury was biting off more than he can chew by fighting him at this early point of his boxing career. However, the 6’7” Fury quickly proved him wrong by drilling Ellis with a big right hand in the opening seconds of the bout and planting him on the canvas.

It looked as if Ellis thought he could walk through Fury’s shots and set up shop on the inside like he often does against his opponents. However, Fury was having none of that and blasted him down with a big right hand. After the knockdown, Ellis staggered to his feet but looked as if he wanted no part of Fury. Ellis was then immediately knocked back down with another huge right hand to the head. Referee John Parris then counted Ellis out at 0:48 of the 1st round.

Needless to say, it was a very impressive performance for Fury, who said later “I had plans on treating this as a sparring session and get some rounds in, but I loved the atmosphere and wanted to put on a show.”

Also, Fury made mention that Ellis was the only heavyweight that was willing to step up and fight him tonight, obviously a swipe at 2008 Olympian Bronze Medalist David Price who Fury has been calling out repeatedly as of late but with no luck.

Ellis, 35, never had chance to get in any shots of his before getting hurt with 1st knockdown. After he got up, he only had time to cover up before getting flattened again.

Fury next fights on April 25th against a still to be determined opponent. However, he’s clearly ready for a much better class of opponent. I honestly think he’s good enough to easily handle Martin Rogan, Matt Skelton and Danny Williams. While some may say that it’s still too early to put Fury in with those guys, I disagree. He’s a young kid with better size, faster hands, and more power than any of them.

Fury also has better defensive skills than any of them. I see Fury’s talent as being world class, whereas Skelton, Rogan and Williams are more regional talents and not truly world class. If you think Fury is too young, look at Mike Tyson. He was only 20 when he won his first world title.

The only difference between Fury and Tyson is that Mike had over 20 fights under his belt by the time he challenged Trevor Berbick for the WBC heavyweight title in 1986. Most of Tyson’s fights up until then were mediocre fighters that Tyson flattened in the 1st round.

I think Fury is more than capable of beating the likes of Rogan, Skelton and Williams. Rogan would be easy because of his lack of height. At 6’2”, he’d be forced to try and smother Fury to make a fight of it. Fury, however, fights well on the inside, even better than Rogan. Fury would eat him up with hooks to the body and uppercuts in close.

Rogan would likely get his head taken off if he tries the same smothering tactics he used against Skelton recently. Rogan faded in the middle port of that fight and gave some rounds away to Skelton. If Rogan even got that far with Fury, he’d have big problems against Tyson if he tired out the same way he did against Skelton.

Williams would be competitive for about two rounds and then would quickly get knocked out by Fury. Williams can’t take big shots all that well without going down and against Fury, Williams would be up and down off the canvas like a yo-yo. This would be a ridiculously easy win for Fury.

As for Skelton, he doesn’t have the offensive skills to compete with Fury. Skelton is more of a slapper and smotherer than any kind of puncher, and he’d have big problems with the big shots from Fury. Like Rogan, Skelton would try to take the fight to the inside by crowing Fury and forcing him to fight at close range.

It wouldn’t work, as Fury would bomb him with uppercuts and body shots, wear him down and take him out. I suspect that Skelton would be knocked out long before he starts to tire, though, because he’d be taking too many big body shots on his soft midsection and he wouldn’t be able to handle that.

Skelton has been lucky to have fought mostly opponents that head hunt the past few years and have left his soft midsection alone. Believe me, Fury would target Skelton’s big gut and drop him like a big tree with a huge hook to the body.



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