By Sean McDaniel: Unbeaten heavyweight hopeful Tyson Fury (13-0, 9 KO’s) showed some improvement in defeating 37-year-old Zack Page (21-33-2, 7 KO’s) by an eight round unanimous decision last Saturday night at the Pepsi Coliseum, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Backed by new trainer Emanuel Steward, Fury dominated the journeyman Page, beating him by the lopsided scores of 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72. Fury, 22, showed improvement with using his jab, as he was able to double and triple up with it to keep Page stuck on the outside in the early going.
In the past, Fury’s jab was often weak and not constant enough to keep his shorter opponents on the outside for long. However, against Page, Fury kept firing it in at him to keep him stuck outside. Page begin to find his way inside in the 3rd, as Fury started to breath hard and look fatigued.
At that point, Fury’s game seemed to disintegrate and go back to his old sloppy style of fighting which involved a lot of inside work and crude slapping punches thrown without much form or power.
From the 4th round on, Fury tried his best to stop Page by hammering him with mostly right hands. But the power just wasn’t there, and Fury wasn’t helped in that he looked exhausted. In looking at the flab around his midsection, it may be that Fury didn’t train hard enough for the fight. Whatever the case, he lacked the necessary power to take Page out.
As such, Fury had to be satisfied with beating the constant pressuring Page by landing lots of shots. There was no question that Fury easily won the fight, but it wasn’t how people were hoping he would look. It’s hard to compare Fury with Wladimir Klitschko at the same age.
When Wladimir turned pro at 22, he already had excellent power in both his left and right hands. He also had top notch hand speed. Fury doesn’t have any of those traits and will have to settle for just having a good jab and huge size. Perhaps Steward needs to work on developing a left hook for Fury, because he needs at least one big power punch in his arsenal if he’s to make it to the next level someday. He won’t go far if he’s forced to beat everyone by high volume punching.
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