By Scott Gilfoid: Not satisfied with saying he wants to beat all the top heavyweights in the division. Tyson Fury has now included light heavyweights in the mix. Fury says he wants to beat light heavyweights, cruiserweights and heavyweights.
The fact is, Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) hasn’t fought in ages, and he’s seen as someone who will be easy work for the top fighters in the heavyweight division in Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin. Fury, 29, has been out of the ring for so long that he can’t be counted on to beat any of the top guys in the weight class. Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to win the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles, but then he failed to defend the belts before disappearing for 2 ½ years.
Fury will be fighting 39-year-old Sefer Seferi (23-1, 21 KOs) on June 9 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Fury is expected to win, but it’s not a given that he’ll get the victory, because he’s been out of the ring for so long and his conditioning is a mystery.
”I can’t sleep at night knowing that people think Aj’s better than me or Deontay Wilder’s better than me,” Fury said on his Instagram. ”I want to hit AJ with six left hooks in a row. Bomb squad [Deontay Wilder] coming for you.”
It’s obviously starting to bug Fury that his comeback is being dismissed by boxing fans as doomed for failure. Most fans just see it as Fury coming back for a cash out against IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. That’s the guy that Fury has been talking about wanting to fight the most, and he’s hardly deserving of a title shot after nearly 3 years out of the ring.
”You may have thought I’ve been f****** about in the past but I’m more determined than I’ve ever been I’m going to destroy all of you,” Fury said. ”If there’s any cruiserweights or light heavyweights out there who want to step up in my division the you better get it done cause I’m smashing through everybody.”
Well, there is one former light heavyweight that wants to fight Fury in the worst way, and that’s Tony Bellew (30-2-1, 21 KOs). He’s been talking night and day about wanting to fight him. Bellew seems to be looking for a cash out himself, so this would be a perfect fight between two fighters on their last legs. Bellew isn’t about to fight any of the top cruiserweights like Murat Gassiev, Oleksandr Usyk, Yunier Dorticos or Mairis Briedis. He wants no part of those guys. If Bellew fights any of the top heavyweights like Deontay Wilder, Dillian Whyte, Alexander Povetkin or Joshua, he would likely be knocked out.
”I love Tyson Fury and he knows I do, but I’d definitely hit him very hard in the face with gloves on,” Bellew said to IFL TV. ”I hit a lot harder than Steve Cunningham. After I beat him, I know what they’ll say – that Fury had been out of the ring so long,” Bellew said.
That’s exactly what the boxing fans will say if Bellew beats Fury, but I’m sure ‘The Bomber’ will be able to live with the fans discrediting his win. Bellew will cry his way all the way to the bank. But let’s be serious here. This isn’t what this is all about. Bellew doesn’t want to fight Fury for the sake of sport. This is a cry for a payday, nothing more.
If Bellew was thinking in terms of a fight that had to do with sports, he’d move back down to cruiserweight and fight Briedis or Yunior Dorticos in order to work his way to a world title shot. It would be simply pointless for Bellew to stay at heavyweight, because there are no older, over-the-hill and injured David Haye type heavyweights that he could fight and make a bundle. Fury is ignoring Bellew, because he knows he won’t get any credit if he fights him. If Fury takes the fight with Bellew, it’s a lose-lose fight.
If Fury wins, boxing fans will dump on him by saying he fought a cruiserweight. If Fury loses, then his career is over with because he couldn’t even beat a cruiserweight. Bellew has nothing to lose if he gets destroyed by Fury, because he’s on his way out of the sport heading into retirement. Bellew could get starched in the 1st round and it wouldn’t matter because he’ll get his payday against Fury. It’s Fury that loses, because he’s hunting for big game in trying to get a huge money fight against Joshua. Fury will make peanuts against Bellew in comparison to the money he can make against Joshua. As such, there’s no reason for Fury to fight Bellew. If Bellew wants to fight someone, then he needs to show some courage and take on Dillian Whyte or move back down to cruiserweight and face the guy he swerved in 2016 in Mairis Briedis.
”He says he doesn’t want to fight me because he doesn’t want to hurt a cruiserweight, but then he signs to fight a cruiserweight who is smaller than me,” Bellew said about the Albanian cruiserweight Sefer Seferi, who Fury will be fighting on June 9.
Bellew needs to realize that he can’t always get what he wants. He’s become kind of spoiled now because his promoter Eddie Hearn set him up with a title shot for the vacant WBC cruiserweight title against Illunga Makabu in May 2016. Hearn also helped Bellew swerve his #1 WBC contender Briedis by having him maneuver around him to face #14 WBC BJ Flores instead in October 2016. After that, Bellew stopped defending his WBC title and moved up to heavyweight to face the shot David Haye. Bellew beat Haye twice, and now he wants a big payday fight against Fury.
It’s possible that Fury will eventually show interest in fighting Bellew, but right now he doesn’t seem to fancy the idea. Fury likely still remembers how defensive Bellew was in his first fight against Haye, and he doesn’t want to have to chase him around the ring for 12 rounds while the boxing fans boo. Fury could hurt his brand if he faces Bellew. It’s not that Fury won’t win the fight. It’s more of a case that if he doesn’t look absolutely spectacular, then he’ll popularity with the boxing fans. It would be the same thing for Bellew if he scouted out someone good from the light heavyweight division to fight instead of fighting in the cruiserweight division. If Bellew didn’t look great beating the light heavyweight, the boxing fans would dump on him and his popularity with his British fans would nosedive.