By Scott Gilfoid: Following his win over Sefer Seferi last Saturday night, former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (26-0, 19 KOs) expects to be back inside the ring on August 19 at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Fury’s fight against former cruiserweight Seferi (23-2, 21 KOs) looked look like an exhibition fight from start to finish at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. In hindsight, the 29-year-old Fury would have been better off calling it an exhibition match, as he would have taken far less criticism for how he fought.
It didn’t look like a serious fight in the eyes of the boxing fans. From the kiss that Fury planted on the lips of Seferi during the face off to the fight ending with no warning and seemingly no reason after the 4th, it looked purely like an exhibition match.
Fury says he’ll win a world title by the end of 2018. However, that may be difficult to do given that his promoter is talking about potentially matching him up against Tony Bellew by the end of the year. Bellew isn’t a world champion. He’s someone who is trying to keep his career alive by getting the biggest payday he can before he retires from boxing.
“I felt fantastic, it was like having my debut again. I’ve had a long time out the ring and I needed some rounds, so I was taking my time,” Fury said to skysports.com. ”The calibre of opponents will keep on rising. I will be better next time. I’m going to have a world title by the end of the year — that’s a promise.”
Fury will get a lot of attention from the fans by vowing to win a world title by the end of the year, I suppose, but it seems more like a pipe dream at best. Heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder have other things planned. Neither of them is going to want to throw a bone to an out of shape former heavyweight champion like Fury, especially after how bad he looked against Seferi. It would be potentially embarrassing for Joshua or Wilder to fight Fury right now. Fury needs to face better opposition and look a heck of a lot better for Joshua and Wilder to want to give him a title shot.
It would be a bad career move for Joshua or Deontay to give the needy Fury an undeserved world title fight. The money would be good obviously, but the criticism they would receive from the boxing fans would be tremendous. If they destroyed Fury in 2 or 3 rounds, they would be laughed at instead of being given credit for beating him. Joshua is in negotiations to defend against his WBA mandatory Alexander Povetkin. That fight is expected to be wrapped up any day now. Wilder could be facing his World Boxing Council mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale next while he waits for Joshua to get done defending against the 38-year-old Povetkin.
As bad as he looked against Seferi, Fury still need a high number of tune-up fights under his belt before he starts talking about fighting for a world title. For one, Fury needs to lose some more weight because he’s still too fat to compete against any of the top heavyweights in the division. If he is going to be fighting for a world title, it’ll have to be against WBA ‘regular’ champion Manuel Charr. That’s a fight that Fury could easily get if Charr gets past 45-year-old contender Fres Oquendo on September 29. Those two are expected to face each other soon as long as the inactive Oquendo doesn’t suffer injury training for the fight. Fury vs. Charr would be a world title fight, but it would be a lower level match-up. Manuel Charr is the secondary WBA heavyweight champion. Joshua is the WBA Super champion, and the one that is considered the true champion. If Charr makes it out of the Oquendo fight without injury, then Fury can possibly face him in December. I don’t know if it’s worth it for Fury to fight for the WBA World heavyweight title, because it’s considered a junior level belt rather than the main one.