Parker excited at Tyson Fury returning to ring

By Boxing News - 12/26/2017 - Comments

Image: Parker excited at Tyson Fury returning to ring

By Scott Gilfoid: Joseph Parker is pretty jazzed up about former heavyweight champ Tyson Fury being on the verge of resuming his career next year at some point. WBO heavyweight champion Parker (24-0, 18 KOs thinks it makes things interesting with the unbeaten Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) making his ring return after 2 years out of boxing.

Parker, 25, obviously has something to gain with Fury coming back, as it’ll give him a potential opponent to face in the future for big money. Parker has a good chance to fight IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in early 2018. That fight is expected to be finalized soon. Even if Parker loses, he could wind up fighting Fury at some point soon. There aren’t exactly a ton of guys for Fury to face in the heavyweight division.

“I’m excited he’s back,” Parker said to skysports.com. “He’s a character who brought a lot of interest to the division. He’s another great fighter and now that he’s back it will be a lot more exciting. There will be a lot more fights to be made. The heavyweight division is back!”

If Fury doesn’t get scalped early in 2018 by Tony Bellew or Joshua, he can bring some excitement to the heavyweight division. Once he starts to lose to different fighters, then the party is over. Fury won’t be as popular as he once was after that point. He’ll just be someone talk a lot of trash but without having the talent to back it up. I have a feeling that Fury is going to make the mistake of fighting someone a little too good for him in 2018, and he’ll wind up getting beaten.

Fury, 29, is in such a hurry to get back into the ring. I don’t think Fury realizes that when a fighter has been out of the ring for 2 or more years, they need to gradually come back. Look what happened to Wladimir Klitschko. He came back in a hurry after a 2-year layoff and ended up losing an 11th round knockout to Anthony Joshua. That’s a fight that Wladimir likely would have won with ease if he hadn’t been so ring rusty. If Wladimir were to continue his boxing career, he would have learned a lesson from that fight. Wladimir did do a good job of exposing Joshua as a limited fighter in his final fight. At least the fans got to see how far apart Joshua is from an old talented fighter like Wladimir. We saw in that fight that Joshua would have been ridiculously over-matched against a prime Wladimir. It would have been an interesting fight to see.

Parker needs to get past Joshua for a fight between him and Fury to hold much interest. If Parker loses to Joshua, then I don’t see there being much interest in a fight between him and Fury.

“It’s fantastic news, we are thrilled for Tyson,” said Parker’s promoter Kevin Barry to skysports.com. “We are excited about seeing him in the ring in 2018. He is going to be very, very hard for anyone to beat. He puts a lot of excitement and personality into the heavyweight division.”

I agree with Barry. Having Fury back is a plus, but only if he’s able to be successful. If Fury comes back and starts getting knocked out left and right, then it won’t be a good thing that he’s returning to the sport. It would just be a hint to other inactive fighters that it’s best to stay inactive once you leave the game rather than coming back and assuming falls that you can return to their top form. At this point, I’d be very surprised if Fury is able to get back to the level that he once was.

There’s been too much time out of the ring for Fury, and he’s been living well, eating like mad, and enjoying a comfortable life. Going back to the grueling work of being a top fighter in boxing is going to be next to impossible for Fury. This is how it ends for a lot of top fighters. They end up getting rich, and then they ease off and don’t train and fight as much as they used to. As such, their careers wind up imploding soon after. Guys like Oscar De La Hoya, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis and Ricky Hatton are just a few examples of fighters that ended their careers prematurely after making a lot of money. De La Hoya was a part time fighter the last 3 years of his career.

Fury still needs to get his license to fight from the British boxing Board of Control. He’s supposed to meet with the BBBofC in January to see if he can get his license back. It’ll be interesting to see if Fury does attend the meeting or blow it off, and just start complaining. If Fury doesn’t get his license from the BBBofC, he’ll likely need to fight outside of the UK. That might complicate things for Fury if he ever faces Joshua or Bellew. Right now, those are the main 2 guys that Fury can make money fighting in the UK. That’ll change in the future if Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce are able to become popular in the UK.