By Allan Fox: Former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) will be getting some visibility this Saturday evening with Showtime streaming his comeback fight against cruiserweight Sefer Seferi (23-1, 21 KOs).
The fight is Fury’s first bout since November 2015. The 10-round Fury-Seferi fight is taking place at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. It’ll be streamed on Showtime Boxing Facebook page and the Showtime Sports YouTube channel will be streaming the Fury-Seferi card. The start time is at 4:30 p.m. ET. Fury vs. Seferi will also be televised in the UK on BoxNation.
This is seen as a slam dunk victory for Fury, although some boxing fans still believe that he could lose due to his long time off from boxing. The tremendous weight loss that Fury has undergone makes him vulnerable. Seferi hasn’t let his weight go the way Fury has, and he’s been busy with his career and not taking long breaks like Fury’s recent 2 1/2 year lay off.
Fury’s decision to take on the cruiserweight Seferi is an odd one, as he’s not a heavyweight. Fury needs to e fighting guys that will help him get ready for the bigger fighters like Joshua and possibly Wilder. If Fury gets past the 39-year-old Seferi, this might not be the end of his fights against former cruiserweights, because he recently accepted a challenge from former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew. Hopefully when Fury faces Bellew, it won’t be until down the road rather than in his next fight after the Seferi bout.
Fury, 6’9”, has recently been comparing himself to the great Muhammad Ali, and also saying that he would like to break former heavyweight world champion Joe Louis’ record for title defenses. It sounds silly coming from Fury, as he’s still not fought since 2015, and even when he was fighting, he never looked invincible. For the most part, Fury fought weak C-level heavyweights during his career. Fury’s best career wins have come against these fighters:
• Wladimir Klitschko
• Dereck Chisora
• Christian Hammer
The heavyweight division has changed a lot since Fury was a major player. Now the top guys are these guys:
• Anthony Joshua
• Deontay Wilder
• Dillian Whyte
• Alexander Povetkin
• Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller
• Joseph Parker
It’s a different bunch of fighters now in the heavyweight division at the top, and it’s possible that Fury might not have a place among those guys.
“I am the greatest heavyweight of all time,” Fury said. “I’ve not got to be modest. I am the best ever. Me, Tyson Fury, the Gypsy King, the one and only. When has there ever been somebody like me? There have been plenty of come-forward aggressors, there have been plenty of boxers off the back foot, but when has there ever been a 6ft 9in switch-hitter with the confidence of Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather rolled into one?”
Fury is nothing like Ali, but he seems to be just saying crazy things in order to gain attention from the boxing public. When it comes to Fury proving that he’s the best, he’s going to need to fight the like of Joshua, Wilder, Whyte, Parker or Povetkin.
This will be the first fight for Fury since he beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 in a huge upset. The boxing world wanted to see if Fury’s win Wladimir was a fluke thing, but unfortunately they never got a chance to see it. as he a number of problems that sidelined his career until now. Fury is still young for a heavyweight at 29, but there are a lot of doubts whether he’ll ever be able to regain the form that he had three years ago. Fury put on a lot of weight in his time out of the ring, and he was almost 400 lbs. There’s never been a fighter that put on that kind of weight that was able to make a successful comeback. George Foremen got as high as 350lbs. during his 10 years out of the ring, but he wasn’t as heavy as Fury. It’s going to be interesting to see if Fury is able to recapture a world title. He might be going about the wrong way though by targeting IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for a title rather than WBA ‘regular’ champion Manuel Charr or WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Those two are arguably more vulnerable than Joshua.
Fury’s win over Wladimir isn’t as good as one would think because the Ukrainian fighter looked like he wasn’t there mentally in the fight. Wladimir wouldn’t throw punches at all. He looked like he was confused.
The co-feature bout will have former WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan (33-0, 13 KOs) battling Maurice Hooker (23-0-3, 16 KOs) for the vacant World Boxing Organization light welterweight title. Flanagan recently vacated his WBO 135 lb. title last October after holding it for two years from July 2015. This will be the first fight for the 28-year-old Flanagan at light welterweight, as he’s been fighting at lightweight for the last five years after campaigning or a brief time at featherweight and super featherweight. At 5’9 ½”, Flanagan is huge for a lightweight, as he was in the 126, 130 and 135 lb. weight classes. A big part of Flanagan’s success during his career has been his size advantage over his opponents. Hooker, 28, is still unbeaten, but a lot of boxing fans felt that he deserve a loss in his fight two years ago against Darleys Perez. The fight was ruled a 10 round draw in November 2016. It was very fortunate that Hooker was able to get a draw.