By William Mackay: Heavyweight Tyson Fury (10-0, 8 KO’s) weighed in today at a career high of 270 pounds for his rematch against John McDermott (25-6, 16 KO’s) for the vacant BBBof C English heavyweight title on Friday night at the Brentwood Centre, Brentwood, Essex. Fury, 22, weighed in at nine pounds heavier than his previous career high of 261, which Fury fought at last year in his unimpressive six round decision over Tomas Mrazek in September 2009.
To his credit, Fury does look more solid than he was a year ago last time he fought McDermott, and appears have put on a lot of solid muscle on his 6’7” frame. Whether this added size will help or hinder Fury is still to be determined.
However, it might help him, because last time Fury fought McDermott, he weighed only 247, a light weight for Fury. Perhaps more telling is that Fury weighed 261 only two months prior to his fight with McDermott in July 2009, and Fury trimmed off 13 pounds in only two months to get down to the 247 for his fight with McDermott.
That’s a lot of weight to take off in only two months and you can imagine that Fury may have taken off a lot of muscle in his haste to quickly take off flab before his bout with McDermott. The result of the quick weight loss showed in Fury’s listless performance against McDermott. Fury looked incredibly weak compared to some of his past performances and appeared to have over-trained for the fight.
Fury looked tan and slim for the fight, but his power just wasn’t there in that fight. McDermott was able to walk through Fury’s best shots without any problems and punish Fury in close with hard right hands to the head. Fury did very little in the fight until the last three rounds when he was able to outwork McDermott with his jab. Fury’s power shots continued to look, but his work rate is probably what saved him for this fight.
If Fury can come out showing better power in this Friday’s fight against McDermott, there’s a good chance that he could end up taking McDermott out. McDermott has a great chin, to be sure, but he’s soft around the middle and Fury could score a stoppage if he goes hard to the body and works on McDermott’s midsection, which is thick with fat.
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