By Scott Gilfoid: Despite Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) beating Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) by an upset 12 round unanimous decision last weekend to capture his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles, the oddsmakers at Bovada.lv have already installed the 6’6” Klitschko as the favorite to beat Fury in the rematch in early 2016. Klitschko is a -125 favorite to beat Fury.
The question is why do the oddsmakers see the 39-year-old Wladimir as the favorite to win the fight? I think it’s a pretty obvious one. If you look at the two fighters, you can see immediately that Wladimir has the far superior punching power and offensive skills. The only reason Wladimir lost the fight last Saturday night was because he didn’t throw any punches.
Klitschko was too busy chasing Fury around the ring, and clinching him to let his hands go to try and win the fight. But you can bet that Wladimir is going to easily make some tweaks in his game to make sure that he doesn’t fall into the same trap a second time when he faces the supposedly 6’9” Fury in the rematch.
Fury doesn’t have the same ability to make changes to his game because he’s just a slapper. Fury was basically fighting full bore last Saturday, and all he could do was land a small handful of slapping shots that never bothered Wladimir in the slightest. In a rematch, Fury will obviously be looking to land the same slaps as before, but he’ll have a very hard time if Wladimir unloads on him with his full armament.
“If you’re not active, you’re not gonna win,” Wladimir’s trainer Johnathon Banks said to RingTV.com in explaining why he lost the fight to Fury. “It wasn’t so much what he [Fury] did, come to take the title, but Wlad didn’t do enough to keep it. It’s not like Tyson dogged him out, outclassed or out-gutted him. I will say, on the record, the rematch will be much, much, much better than the first fight.”
So there it is. Banks is already saying that the rematch will be better than the first fight, and you know what that means, don’t you? It means that Wladimir is going to be on Fury’s tail 24/7 in the fight, chasing him down and unloading on him with power shots. He’s going to have Fury under the gun the entire time, and that’s going to make it very difficult for Fury to deal with him.
Hopefully for Wladimir’s sake, he and Banks realize that they’re going to need to use a lot more right hands in this fight than they did in the previous encounter. Throwing jabs and left hooks clearly won’t work because Fury will be leaning backwards looking to make them miss.
When you fight guys like Fury, it’s impossible to nail them with jabs and left hooks, because they’re leaning away from the shots. However, you can hit them with right hands to the head.
If Wladimir misses with his right hand, then he needs to follow up with another right hand at close range or throw a left hook at that point rather than simply clinching and waiting for the referee to separate them. In other words, Wladimir is going to need to learn how to do some infighting for the first time in his career, because this is a fight that begs for him to do so.
If you look at WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s last fight against Johann Duhaupas last September, you’ll notice that when Deontay missed with a right hand, he would follow up with short right uppercuts and left hooks at close range while in close. Wilder wouldn’t just clinch and give up after missing a right hand. He’d throw shots on the inside.
If Wladimir wants to get the better of Fury, then he’s going to need to study Wilder’s recent fight against Duhaupas and do exactly what he did when he would come in close with him after missing a right hand or even after nailing him with a right. Wilder fought on the inside until he backed up on his own. Wilder didn’t just give up and clinch or allow Duhaupas to clinch. Wilder fought through the clinches and stayed busy.
Wladimir will need to change his game 100 percent if he wants to beat Fury by making sure he throws long right hands, and then staying busy when he gets in close rather than just mindlessly tying Fury up like a programmed robot. It’s time that Wladimir forgets the clinching style that was taught to him by his late trainer Emanuel Steward and instead adopt the inside fighting style of Deontay and Lennox Lewis. Those are the guys that Wladimir needs to be patterning his fighting style after right now in order to beat a feather duster like Fury.
“For whatever reason, Wladimir wasn’t letting his hands go,” Banks said. “We will change a few things and some things will stay the same. We will come back and regain the title. I hope he enjoys the time being champion but Wladimir is coming back for his title.”
The oddsmakers obviously see Wladimir as more capable of making incremental improvements in his game to win the next fight than they do with Fury. That’s why they likely see Wladmir as the favorite.
As I said before, Fury basically had his foot to the floor in maxing out his game in the Klitschko fight, and the best he could do was when a close decision with Klitschko not throwing punches. But in a rematch, it’ll be a much different story with Wladimir throwing a lot more punches and Furhy forced to deal with a lot of right hands being aimed at his head. I can’t see Fury being able to block or dodge all of them. If Wladimir throws a lot of right hands in the rematch, then Fury is going to be getting nailed left and right and he’ll have to depend on his chin to get him through the fight. But even if Fury can stay on his feet for the full 12 rounds, it’s going to be difficult for him to win a decision because Wladimir will have landed the harder shots and likely more of them.
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