Tyson Fury to fight in April, expects to be thinner

By Boxing News - 02/17/2014 - Comments

fury684By Scott Gilfoid: The 274 lb heavyweight Tyson Fury (22-0, 16 KO’s) looked in dreadful shape last Saturday night in struggling to defeat 3rd tier fighter Joey Abell (29-8, 28 KO’s) by a 4th round TKO in London, UK. Fury, who looked like he had climbed off a couch to take the fight, was hit frequently with clean left hands by Abell in the 4 rounds of action.

On at least two occasions, Abell appeared to shake Fury up and have him reeling. To his credit, Fury was able to knock Abell down 4 times en route to stopping him in the 4th, but not before fouling him several times. It was a good thing that Fury had a lenient referee working the fight because a lot of referees would have disqualified him after he hit Abell twice while he was on the canvas in the final knockdown in the 4th round. Why Fury felt he needed to hit Abell while he was down is unclear, but it was pretty sad to see him nailing a guy that was down and who had already been dropped previously 3 times.

The fact that it took Fury 4 rounds to stop Abell is interesting, because Chris Arreola knocked Abell out in 1 round recently. That kind of shows you where Fury stands in the heavyweight picture. Arreola knocks Abell effortlessly in the 1st, whereas Fury has to struggle to get him out in the 4th after fouling him several times.

“I’ve got some weight to lose and some tweaking up to do,” Fury said to Sky Sports. “I need to improve. There’s always room for improvement. I’m back in the ring in April and I can’t wait…Hopefully at the end of that I will be in line to fight Wladimir Klitschko for the WBO championship.”

Peter Fury, the trainer for Tyson, says that he expects him to be down to 260 lbs by the time he fights in April. He sees him losing 14 pounds of weight in the next 2 months by the time he sets foot in the ring in April. Sadly, Fury will still be around 6 lbs overweight after all that weight comes off, but he’ll be closer to the ideal weight that he needs to be in order to beat Dereck Chisora again in the Summer. There fight is expected to be a WBO heavyweight eliminator bout with the winner getting a shot against WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Fury hasn’t said who his opponent will be for April, but the fact that it’s being called another tuneup bout for him tells you all you need to know. It’s going to likely be another lower level opponent that he can beat with ease. With all the weight that Fury will have dropped by then, I would hope to see him facing a better opponent than the one we just saw last Saturday, but I doubt it. They’re probably not going to put him in with someone that will risk his payday fight against Chisora in the Summer, because that fight will be a big payday for Fury and it has a lot of riding on it because of it being a WBO eliminator bout.

The way that Fury looked last Saturday, I don’t think he’s good enough to compete with a lot of the top heavyweights in the division. I mean, I think guys like Tomasz Adamek, Bryant Jennings, Mike Perez, Deontay Wilder, Kurbrat Pulev, Arreola, Bermane Stiverne, Alexander Povetkin, Odlanier Solis, Andy Ruiz, Alex Leapai, Vyacheslav Glazkov, Tony Thompson and Lucas Browne would all beat Fury at this point. I think even David Price and Anthony Joshua would do him as well. And I know this may hurt a little, but I think Hughie Fury would beat him as well if that fight took place.



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