By William Mackay: 6’9″ heavyweight Tyson Fury (7-0, 7 KO’s) takes a major step up in class on Friday night when he faces big John McDermott (25-5, 16 KO’s) in a 10-round bout for the BBBofC heavyweight title at the Brentwood Centre, Brentwood, Essex. Fury, 21, has thus far had things pretty much easy having faced a number of Grade C opponents and has easily dispatched them.
However, McDermott, 29, who is far from being a top level heavyweight, still presents a huge jump in talent compared to the mediocre opponents that Fury has been in with up to this point in his one year pro career. That’s not a knock on Fury, because this is the norm for fighters just starting out their careers like Fury is. But none the less, Fury will be severely tested on Friday night against McDermott.
Fury has shown good power in dispatching his first seven opponents of his career. What seems to make Fury even better, though, is his high pressure all out attacking style of fighting. Say what you will about Fury’s less than impressive physique, he can be more than a handful when he’s attacking his opponents with power shots in the first few rounds. Only one of his opponents has made it to the 4th round.
That’s not just because of his dreadful opposition, but rather because Fury puts his opponents under the gun in the first few rounds and they’re not ready for that kind of offense. McDermott is coming off of two back to back 12 round losses to Danny Williams in his last two fights. Both bouts were close, but that seems to more of a product of Williams looking really past it rather than because of McDermott shining in any real way.
The last bout between them, a 12 round majority decision win for Williams, was painful to watch because the action slowed to a crawl by the 6th. Both Williams and McDermott looked like two drunken sailors barely able to stay up right because of how tired they were. It was really bad boxing to see two heavyweights as tired as they looked.
One would hope for McDermott’s sake that he comes into this fight in a lot better condition, because Fury will make short work of him if he’s only able to fight hard for a few rounds without clinching nonstop. McDermott will be giving up six inches in height and probably a lot more than that in terms of power and work rate.
This is why McDermott needs to try and go after Fury as early as possible and try to get him out of there. The longer the fight goes, the better the chance that McDermott will wear out and get taken out by Fury’s big shots. Fury may not be a one punch knockout artist, but he gets a lot of leverage on his shots and is excellent and punching to the body.
McDermott’s fat midsection will, no doubt, be an inviting target for Fury to aim his shots at. McDermott has a great chin, but I’m guessing he’s probably vulnerable to a body attack if Fury focuses his energy in that area.
Prediction: Fury by 6th round knockout.
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