By Scott Gilfoid: 27-year-old Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) is heading for what many boxing fans feel is a certain loss in his title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) next month on October 24th at the ESPRIT Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany.
In a sign that the 6’9” Fury has lost all perspective of his own talent limits, he believes that he’s going to beat not only the aging 39-year-old Klitschko, but also WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and #2 WBC contender Anthony Joshua. In other words, Fury thinks he’s going to clean house in beating the top heavyweights.
I don’t rate Joshua as being a top heavyweight, but I do think he’s good enough to KO the likes of Fury. The thing is Fury was hurt by the following heavyweights in the past: Neven Pajkic, Nicolai Firth and Steve Cunningham. Heck, even Big John McDermott gave Fury all kinds of problems in their first fight in September 2009 in a fight that many boxing fans felt that McDermott should have won.
Fury got the 10 round points decision by a 98-92 score, but a lot of people thought that McDermott was royally robbed in that fight. In looking back at those four fights, I don’t see any improvement in Fury from the way he was fighting back then. As far as I can tell, Fury is just fatter now, slower, and more flat-footed than he was back then.
“I am beating Klitschko, I am beating Wilder, I am beating Joshua and whoever else they want to send to me,” Fury said to skysports.com. “I am confident I am going to win this fight regardless of what Klitschko brings to the ring. He still isn’t going to win.”
Well, given that Fury couldn’t even beat Firtha, McDermott, Cunningham and Pajkic without getting hurt and almost losing, I think Klitschko is pretty safe to hold onto his titles against the upright, easy to hit Fury.
The only thing that Wladimir has to worry about with Fury is losing patience by having him talk his ear off in bragging about himself 24/7. I mean, as long as Klitschko tunes Fury out while he’s talking about how good he is, he’ll be fine when he gets inside the ring on October 24th. I think this fight is a mismatch in favor of Klitschko no matter how you want to cut it.
Fury’s chin is just too fragile to be able to stand in there for 12 rounds against a guy with Wladimir’s punching power, hand speed and talent. Besides all those things, Wladimir has a huge experience advantage in beating guys that would likely stop Fury seven days a week, fighters like Bryant Jennings, Kubrat Pulev and Alexander Povetkin to name a few.
Wilder vs. Fury would be a mismatch in my view. Wilder, 6’7”, would have too much punching power and a big reach advantage over Fury. Yeah, I know Fury’s 85 inch reach is technically two inches longer than Wilder’s 83” reach, but Fury doesn’t have the ability to use his reach because he doesn’t seem capable of bending forward to use his reach the way Wilder does. I mean, Fury lacks the basic athleticism to throw long power shots.
I guess that’s why when you see Fury throw a power shot, it’s always with him standing almost straight up with his arm moving but not his torso or legs. There’s bending at the waist with Fury when he throws a power shots. It’s look really weird when he throws a punch. He just won’t or can’t seem to bend forward to throw a power shot.
All I can think of is he either lacks the flexibility in his upper body or lacks the athleticism to throw a power shot in that manner. What this means, of course, is that Wilder would have a huge advantage when he has the action on the outside against Fury, because he won’t be getting hit with anything other than Fury’s limp jabs that are almost like back hand slaps.
Wilder would be free to bomb Fury from long range all night long with long right hands to the head. Unfortunately for Fury, I don’t think he would be able to take more than a half dozen of Wilder’s big right hands before he drops for the 10 count. Wilder’s previously broken with hand is at 95% of what it was before he suffered the injury earlier this year in his one-sided 12 round decision win over former WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne.
This means that Fury would have to take nearly the full power of Wilder’s right hand bombs each time he gets hit. Needless to say, if Fury couldn’t stay on his feet when feeling the full power of former IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham’s right hand, then he won’t be able to take more than six of Wilder’s big fight hands before he’s snoozing for the fight in my view. It might only take one solid right hand from Wilder to do Fury in, but I think at the most, 6 hard right hands would do Fury in for the 10 count.
“I am the man and this is my era. They’re in my era, so they are getting knocked out,” Fury said.
Fury is one of the top contenders in the heavyweight division, but I rate him more as a top 10 or top 15 guy rather than a No.1 fighter. I think the following heavyweight contenders all beat Fury: Joshua, Pulev, Povetkin, Carlos Takam, Bermane Stiverne, Vyacheslav Glazkov, Erkan Teper, Johann Duhaupas, Joseph Parker, Lucas Browne, Shannon Briggs, Bryant Jennings and Alexander Ustinov. I see Fury at the bringing up the rear at the bottom of the heavyweight division at No.15. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I rate him. I think he loses to anyone with punching power.
Joshua would do a number on Fury for sure. I wish the World Boxing Organization had ordered Joshua vs. Fury as the WBO heavyweight eliminator instead of making it easy for Fury to get a title shot by the WBO ordering Fury vs. Dereck Chisora.
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