By Scott Gilfoid: IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) is saying he aggravated an old back injury last weened while helping out his cousin Hughie Fury. Fury’s lower back is having problems with spasms. Fury doesn’t expect the injury to prevent him from facing former world champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) in a rematch on July 9.
The fight date still isn’t official, and Fury is starting to lose patience with the 40-year-old Ukrainian. Fury says he might move on if the fight isn’t agreed on soon. It’s unclear whether Fury can actually walk away from the fight, however, as there was a rematch clause in his contract with Klitschko last year for their November fight.
The back injury could be something that will prevent Fury from fighting at 100 percent. He says he’ll fight with the injury, but you have to suspect that it’ll keep him from being his best. As such, we could see Fury’s back injury as a potential excuse for him to use if he gets beaten by Wladimir in the rematch, especially if it’s a one-sided fight.
There are a lot of boxing fans who believe the 6’6” Wladimir will be much improved in the rematch and will beat Fury fairly easily. Now that Fury is yapping about having a back injury, we could see the beginning stages of an excuse that he might pull out of his hat if he loses to Wladimir. I’m just saying. Fury now has the perfect excuse to bring up if he loses to Wladimir in July or whenever the fight eventually takes place.
“I’ve got a back injury,” he said. “An old injury flared up when I went over to help Hughie out for his fight on Saturday,” said Fury to the mirror.co.uk. “It’s a lower back injury. I got it years ago, in 2008 — I was over in Ingles’ gym in Sheffield and Richard Towers punched me in the back.”
This is what I was afraid of. Fury living it up after winning the world title, putting on weight, and now bellyaching about an injury.
It’s unknown what Fury did to aggravate his back injury. He says he was helping Hughie out, but he didn’t say what he was doing when he hurt his back. Was Fury carrying some of Hughie’s bags or what? You would think that Fury would be taking it easy now that he’s a world champion. Fury should be in the gym 24/7 burning that blubber off in order to make sure he’s in top shape for the Wladimir rematch. Heck, it’s been four months since he last fought Wladimir.
By the time Fury gets back inside the ring to face Wladimir, he’ll have been out of the ring for at least eight months, possibly more. While that’s not a lot of time for a lot of heavyweights, it is a lot of time for someone like Fury. He tends to put on blubber in between fights, and the longer it goes before the rematch, the more likely Fury will put on more weight. He needs to be in the gym training rather than attending boxing matches and such. The time that Fury is spending doing this and that, he could be using to keep his weight down. In looking at video from last Saturday night, Fury looks like he’s already sporting a paunch. Losing that belly won’t be easy.
“I got taken to hospital and ever since then, every time I get punched in the back, it goes into a spasm, like a trapped nerve. It’s a painful experience,” said Fury. “But, listen, when they announce the date, I’ll be ready — back injury or not.”
It sounds to me like Fury shouldn’t be fighting. If his back is acting up, I don’t see how he’s going to be able to pass a physical to step inside the ring unless he’s quiet about the injury. It’s not good for the boxing fans for Fury to be taking a fight with Wladimir while he’s injured. We already had to deal with Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight last May with Pacquiao being injured before the fight.
It would be worse if Fury takes the fight injured with Wladimir, and we then see Fury losing the fight and then blabbing about his injury afterwards. I think that would be so bad for the sport of boxing to have another well-known fighter saying he wasn’t 100 percent for his fight due to an injury.
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