By Nate Anderson: Perhaps we’ll be seeing the future of the British heavyweight division this Saturday night when undefeated British heavyweight prospect Tyson Fury (5-0, 5 KOs) takes a small step up in competition in facing 6’7″ Scott Belshaw (10-1, 7 KOs) in a scheduled eight round bout at the Coliseum, Watford, in Hertfordshire. Fury, 20, will be moving up from his normal six round bouts to the eight round plateau and hopefully he looks good.
Belshaw, 23, from Ireland, is a fighter with good talent having one five amateur titles in his home country, and has shown good skills in winning 10 of his 11 fights since turning pro three years ago in 2006. Belshaw has only been defeated once, losing a narrow six round decision to Russian Daniil “Shrek” Peretyatko last year in March.
Belshaw has since avenged the defeat with a one-sided six round decision over Peretyatko four months later in July 2008. Belshaw has picked up his 10 wins over soft mostly soft opposition and will be dealing with a completely different kind of fight in facing Fury on Saturday night.
Fury has knocked out all five of his opponents thus far, and will be looking to add to that streak against Belshaw. However, it will be interesting to see how Fury performs against Belshaw, because virtually all of the 6’7″ Fury’s opponents since turning pro have been smaller fighters in the range of 6’2″ to 6’3″, giving Tyson a huge height, reach and weight advantage over each of them.
In Saturdays’ fight, Fury will be taking on a fighter his own size. Previously, Fury struggled against 6’8″ British amateur David Price in the Senior National championships in 2006, losing by a lopsided 22-8 score. However, Fury was only 17 at the time and he put Price down on the canvas once in the fight.
It remains to be seen whether that was a product of Fury’s inexperience and youth or if he just was in over his head against a fighter of similar height and weight as him.
Look for Fury to score a quick and easy knockout over Belshaw on Saturday, perhaps by the 4th round. Fury has far too many offensive kills for Belshaw to compete for long. Belshaw will be game for a few rounds but by the 4th, the steady punishment from Fury will be too much for the Irish fighter and he’ll likely fold up.
Fury will be fighting on the undercard of the middleweight Commonwealth title bout between Darren McDermott and Darren Barker.
In Fury’s last fight in April, Fury knocked out journeyman Matthew Ellis in the 1st round. Fury dropped Ellis seconds into the fight with two powerful right hand bombs. A badly shaken Ellis got to his feet and was then knocked flat a few seconds later with a nice right from Fury. The referee didn’t bother waiting to see if Ellis was going to get up and immediately stopped the fight a mere 48 seconds into the fight.
This fight like many of the others showed how effortless that Fury gets many of his knockouts. It seems like he’s not punching that hard, but due to his size and leverage that he gets on his punches, he’s able to knock opponents out while looking as if he’s coasting.
At 20, Fury is likely to be the future of British boxing, because the current stars like David Haye, Danny Williams and Matt Skelton won’t likely be around much longer. Haye is young enough to last another four or five years, but he’s made it clear that he wants to get out much sooner than that.
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