Tyson Fury to fight Donnell Holmes instead of Jason Gavern on September 10th

By Boxing News - 08/30/2010 - Comments

By William Mackay: Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Tyson Fury (11-0, 9 KO’s) has a new opponent for September 11th. Instead of facing the tough American Jason Gavern on this date, Fury will be facing 37-year-old Donnell Holmes (32-1-2, 28 KO’s) in an eight round bout at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, London, United Kingdom. Although Holmes has an impressive looking record, those wins have come against B level opponents. Gavern is probably the much more dangerous opponent compared to Holmes and it makes you wonder whether Gavern was considered too good to risk Fury against.

It would make sense because Gavern was at least on the same level as British heavyweight “Big” John McDermott, if not better. And we saw Fury go life and death with McDermott in both of his fights with him. Gavern might have been considered a step too far for the young 22-year-old Fury. Holmes should be more to Fury’s liking, because he’s older, easier to hit and a lot shorter than Fury at 6’2” compared to Fury’s 6’7” height.

Fury is coming off a lackluster 9th round stoppage win over McDermott in June. Fury looked totally exhausted early on in that fight and was sloppy through much of the fight before getting the stoppage win. Had McDermott more power, he may have been able to take Fury out when Fury was totally exhausted in rounds seven through nine.

It’s hard to point at any significant wins on Holmes’s resume, because he’s fought exclusively 2nd tier opposition. Holmes has beaten Billy Zumbrun and Brad Gregory. He was beaten by Brian Minto last year in a 4th round technical decision loss. The fight was stopped due to a head clash. Holmes looked decent but it was still early in the fight and Minto likely would have taken over at some point and beaten Holmes anyway.
Fury has talked about wanting to fight British heavyweights Derek Chisora and Sam Sexton. It’s hard to give Fury any chance against either of them. Both of them look a couple notches better than Fury. However, at least Fury will have a better chance at fighting them now that he’s changed opponents from Gavern to Holmes. Don’t expect much from Fury in the Holmes fight. Although Holmes isn’t all that great, he’ll still likely give Fury a lot of problems. Fury still fights a lot like a novice and Holmes at least looks like a professional fighter. The age factor will likely be a problem for Holmes in this fight. If he doesn’t get to Fury early, he’ll probably end up running out of gas and getting stopped later in the fight.



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