By Sean McDaniel: Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Tyson Fury (11-0, 9 KO’s) takes another risky fight when he faces the tough Jason Gavern (19-7-4, 8 KO’s) on September 10th in a scheduled eight round bout at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, London. Gavern, 33, may not have nearly the same impressive record that Fury has going for him, but Gavern is fighting at a high level recently and has shown an incredible amount of improvement at this advanced point in his career. Although not a big puncher, Gavern fought to a 12 round draw with Johnathon Banks in May. In his fight before that, Gavern upset Manuel Quezada, beating him by a 10 round decision in April.
Gavern was stopped in the 7th round by Russian Denis Boytsov last year in October, but he gave Boytsov all kinds of problems in that fight despite clowning around for most of the bout. Gavern might be a slight step up from John McDermott, who Fury defeated by a 9th round TKO in his last fight June. If Fury can’t take Gavern out, we may see an upset because Gavern won’t tire out like McDermott and will still be taking the fight to Fury in the later rounds. We could see Fury suffering his first loss unless he’s in better condition than he was against McDermott. Fury looked exhausted at times in the McDermott rematch, and fought kind of wildly.
Later on, Fury blamed his poor showing on the heat in the arena but McDermott seemed unaffected by the heat. It just looked like Fury didn’t have the conditioning to fight hard. He’ll have to do better against Gavern, because he will be pushed a lot harder than he was in his two fights with the heavyset McDermott. But Fury has to beat guys like Gavern if he’s to be taken seriously in the division. If he can’t beat a fighter like Gavern, who is more of a B level gatekeeper, then Fury likely won’t make it to the next level.
The fight will be shown on Showbox, which will give many American viewers their first chance at seeing the 22-year-old Fury. Let’s hope that Fury is in better condition than he was in the McDermott fight, because he’ll surely disappoint if he looks as sloppy as he did in that fight. Fury needs to jump on Gavern and try to take him out with power shots immediately. Gavern looked overmatched against Boytsov when the Russian got serious with him in the 7th round and turned on the firepower. If Fury lets Gavern hang around, he could end up having big problems.
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