By Scott Gilfoid: As I predicted, Hughie Fury (20-0, 1- KOs) turned down what would have been a very, very tough fight against Dillian Whyte (16-1, 13 KOs) for the vacant British heavyweight title.
The British Boxing Board of Control ordered the Hughie vs. Whyte fight this week after the previous British heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua gave up his title after he captured the IBF heavyweight title with a second round stoppage win over Charles Martin.
“Dillian Whyte can go for British titles,” said Peter Fury on his social media site. “Hughie Fury will step aside. Good luck champ. My reasons are clear to those who count. Sorry if I don’t go into details with our reasons. British title top belt to have. Let’s not forget, though – Hughie ranked 14 and about to be ranked much higher with WBO. We’re happy as we are!”
Hughie’s trainer/father Peter Fury revealed the news about Hughie on his Twitter account. Peter pointed out that Hughie, 21, now has a top 15 ranking, and he expects him to receive a higher ranking very soon. In other words, Peter sees the British title as a backwards step for young Hughie. I’m not sure if that’s the case though.
Hughie just fought journeyman Fred Kassi last month on April 30 at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK, and Hughie did not look at all good. He was getting booed like mad by the crowd, who were extremely unhappy with the constant movement from Hughie. They wanted Hughie to stand his ground and fight Kassi, and he proved to be incapable of doing that.
When Hughie did stop to fight, Kassi was nailing him with big head shots that would sent young Hughie fleeing each time. In the 6th round, Hughie collided with Kassi and suffered a bad cut over his left eye. The cut led to the fight being halted in the 7th.
You can argue that the cut might have saved Hughie from being knocked out because he was dog tired from running, and was taking BIG shots to the head each time he would try and fight Kassi.
Not surprisingly, Hughie had no pop on his punches because he was so tired. Kassi was able to walk through Hughie’s shots and nail him with big punches with either hand. It looked to me that Hughie was tired from both running and the stress of being pressured by the relentless Kassi. The fight looked like a replay of the Wladimir Klitschko vs. Ross Puritty fight from many years ago, where Puritty wore down Wladimir with pressure and heavy shots to the head to get a stoppage in the 11th round.
Wladimir landed a lot of punches on Puritty, but he was so tired from running that the shots had no power on them. Hughie is obviously not going to be another Klitschko because he doesn’t have that kind of talent nor does he have punching power even when not tired.
Whyte replied back to Peter Fury via his Twitter, saying, “No problem big Peter Fury. Hope Hughie gets well soon. Who wants to fight me for the British title? David Price? Dereck Chisora? Let’s get it on.”
No way on earth do I see Chisora or Price going to take a fight against Whyte. Chisora was just soundly beaten by Kubrat Pulev last Saturday night. The last thing he needs is to be fighting Whyte and taking another royal pounding. A loss for Chisora to Whyte would pretty much send him to journeyman status.
It would be too many defeats in a short period of time and it would be academic at that point that Chisora’s career would be finished. Price is trying to rebuild his career after his loss to Erkan Teper in 2015. Price will be fighting on May 29 against an opponent still to be determined at Goodison Park in Liverpool, UK.
The fact that Price still doesn’t have an opponent scheduled at this point suggests that he could be fighting a very weak fodder type fighter. Whyte hits too hard for Price in my estimation and that fight would likely last one round with Whyte knocking Price out.
I think Price is one knockout loss away from being finished as a fighter. I don’t think it matters if it comes against Whyte or someone else. I see it coming in the future once Price faces another halfway decent fighter with some punching power.
One fighter that seems interested in fighting for the vacant British heavyweight title is unbeaten David Allen (9-0-1, 6 KOs). Whyte is clearly at another level than Allen. If that fight happens, it would be another Whyte vs. Brian Minto type fight. I see Allen as a Minto level fighter at best.
“I’ll happily fight anyone in Britain for the British title. It doesn’t matter who it is,” said to skysports.com.