By Scott Gilfoid: Taking a page out of the playbook of Audley Harrison, unbeaten heavyweight contender/prospect Tyson Fury (20-0, 14 KO’s) is saying he’ll retire if things don’t work out his way tonight against the 210 pound Steve Cunningham (25-5, 12 KO’s) at the Madison Square Garden Theater, in New York, New York, USA.
It’s not as if Fury doesn’t have everything stacked in his favor. His promoter picked out a fighter that is in his mid-30s and who has fought as a cruiserweight for most of his career until recently. Fury has a 44 pound weight advantage and he’s younger by 12 years and 7 inches taller. This is called very, very careful match-making to make sure that Fury stays unbeaten long enough to get put in with one of the Klitschkos.
He doesn’t stand a chance against either Klitschko, let’s be honest. That’s a mismatch when and if that fight ever happens, but by having Fury face guys that are much smaller than him it helps him a great deal to keep him from getting exposed until he gets that payday fight.
Fury said to the mirror.co.uk “If this man gives me a good fight, I swear on Jesus’ name I’m going to retire because I ain’t going to be nothing like I say I’m going to be if I can’t do a job on this man. I’ll retire if I don’t stop him. If I don’t impress.”
I think Fury needs to start thinking about retiring now because he didn’t stop his last opponent Kevin Johnson and I didn’t see him as being impressive in that fight. He’s not going to stop Cunningham. I’m not sure who convinced Fury that he can punch but whoever it is they need to been kept far away from him because he’s not a puncher. Planting ideas into Fury’s head to make him think he’s a puncher is going to get the guy knocked out because he’s just a tall slapper.
Fury doesn’t possess true heavyweight power, and he pretty much wins by throwing a lot of slapping shots against his 2nd and 3rd tier opposition. He hasn’t fought a good heavyweight yet and he still won’t after tonight because Cunningham is a new comer at heavyweight and I don’t rate him as being a true top 10 heavyweight. There are too many bigger guys than him that would give him fits.
I know Cunningham lost a close 12 round decision to Tomasz Adamek last December in a fight that many boxing fans thought Cunningham should have won, but I think Adamek is really on the decline in his career. He’s not the heavyweight he was when he first entered the division in 2009. He never was all that great anyway and had a close call with Chris Arreola before getting stopped by Vitali Klitschko.
Comments are closed.