By Scott Gilfoid: Former world champion Lennox Lewis doesn’t think Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) has the chin, punching power, or the experience to defeat IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 Kos) in their fight this Saturday night at the ESPRIT Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany. Lewis is concerned that Fury was dropped by a cruiserweight in Steve Cunningham in the past.
He feels that if a small former cruiserweight like Cunningham was able to put Fury on the canvas, then that is a problem that Fury is going to have in trying to fight at the upper level of the heavyweight division.
You’ve got to be able to handle an occasional big shot from a heavyweight if you want to compete at the upper level of the heavyweight division.
Lewis says that if he were fighting Klitschko, he’d put pressure on him by going after him. However, it might not be so easy for Fury to do the same thing that Lewis would have done because he doesn’t have the same kind of punching power, and definitely doesn’t have the punch resistance that he had as well. Lewis wasn’t known for having a great chin, but he was never knocked down by a small cruiserweight like Steve Cunningham the way that Fury was knocked down.
“Klitschko likes to punish his opponents but he’ll only go for the stoppage if he senses that the time,” Lewis said to RingTV.com. “He could probably grind Tyson Fury down by the middle rounds if he goes for it…Either way, I don’t think Fury can contend with him at this point in his career and I like Wladimir in the fight.”
Klitschko probably could wipe Fury out if he was fighting aggressively the way he used to before the late Emanuel Steward took over as Klitschko’s trainer in 2004. Before Steward trained Wladimir, he was an aggressive heavyweight who threw a lot of punches and rarely ever clinched. If you look bad at Wladimir’s fights before Steward trained him, it was like night and day. Wladimir never clinched back then, and he really poured it on. Steward turned Wladimir into a cautious fighter who rarely committed to power shots.
“What’s more concerning is Fury’s capacity to take a shot. Anyone can get caught, but when someone 40 pounds lighter is putting you down (former IBF cruiserweight titleholder Steve Cunningham) then that’s a problem. We’re talking about a fighter from a different weight class. No light heavyweight or cruiserweight ever came close to getting me down.”
Lewis brings up a very good point. If Fury can’t even handle a good shot from a cruiserweight not known for being a puncher like Cunningham, then what in the heck if Fury going to do on Saturday night when he gets inside the ring with Klitschko.
Unless Fury’s defense is impregnable tomorrow night, I suspect that Wladimir is going to be able to get to him to knock him out fast in front of the 55,000 boxing fans that will be crowding the ESPRIT Arena in this fight.
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