Weights: Fury 260, Hammer 248

By Boxing News - 02/27/2015 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: A slightly flabby looking heavyweight Tyson Fury (23-0, 17 KOs) weighed in on Friday for his stay busy fight against Christian Hammer (17-3, 10 KOs) this Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Fury weighed in at 260 pounds, and you could see a visible spare tire around his midsection.

At one point, Fury jokingly pulled his spandex pants up to his the flab around his midsection. It didn’t work though, because you could still see the fat around his waist.

For his part, Hammer weighed in at 248 pounds, and he looked a lot more solid without the excess baggage of fat around his belly region. But that’s not to say that he’s going to win the fight on Saturday.

During the stare down, Fury repositioned Hammer’s cap by pushing it backwards so that Fury could crowd him in close. Fury then shoved Hammer and said “lifting weights doesn’t mean he can fight.”

The outburst from Fury was an odd one. Why ridicule your opponent because he’s trained hard and is looking trim. Fury certainly could have worked out harder to take off the flab, couldn’t he? I mean, he’d have had no reason to talk trash about Hammer being in good shape.

Hammer pretty much has no chance of winning the fight despite having a high ranking of #3 by the WBO. I see that as a dramatically inflated ranking that the World Boxing Organization gave Hammer, as I don’t see him as a top 15 or even top 50 heavyweight.

I don’t know what the WBO was thinking when they gave Hammer his high ranking, but they must have seen something in his defeats against Taras Bidenko, Mariusz Wach and Robert Gregor to give him a high ranking. It certainly couldn’t have been from any of Hammer’s wins, because he’s never beaten anyone that I consider even a good 2nd tier fighter.

Hammer has wins over Konstantin Airich, Kevin Johnson, Irineu Beato Costa Junior, Leif Larsen, Oleksiy Mazikin and Danny Williams. Believe it or not, those are Hammer’s best wins of his career. I had him losing the Kevin Johnson fight, which took place in Germany where Hammer lives.

Fury, 6’9”, will be sporting a seven inch reach advantage when he enters the ring on Saturday night against the 6’2” Hammer. Fury already has locked up the WBO mandatory spot for a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko later this year.

Fury just wants to stay busy while he waits for that fight. Hammer obviously was picked out due to his short height and his lack of punching power. It would have been interesting to see Fury take on someone like Alexander Povetkin, Carlos Takam or Mike Perez in a stay busy fight.

Fury said he might retire if he loses to Hammer on Saturday. I kind of find that hard to believe, but Fury obviously needs something to motivate him here for this fight.

On the undercard, middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jnr (18-1, 13 KOs) weighed in at 11st 5lbs 7oz for his fight against Dmitry Chudinov (14-0-2, 9 KOs). For his part, Chudinov weighed in at 11st 5lbs 9oz. Eubank Jr and Chudinov will be fighting for the interim WBA middleweight strap.



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