Tyson Fury already back in training, preparing for Deontay Wilder rematch

By Boxing News - 01/10/2019 - Comments

Image: Tyson Fury already back in training, preparing for Deontay Wilder rematch

By Tim Royner: Tyson Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) is already in training with Ben Davison to get an early start on preparing for his rematch against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs), which is expected to take place in the first half of 2019. A short workout clip of Fury, 30, was posted on the BT Sport site this morning, showing him doing a lot of circling of the ring, jabbing and throwing power shots. Fury looks like he’s taking the rematch with Wilder seriously by getting off to a quick head start in his training.

It’s still not a sure thing that the Wilder vs. Fury rematch will get made, however. Fury’s trainer Ben Davison was talking recently about how they feel they were treated “unjustly” in the fight with Wilder on December 1st. Davison says the reward in the rematch has to be worth it for the fight to happen. The way Davison is talking, the negotiations between Fury and Wilder could be a lot tougher than the first time around. The last thing that the boxing public needs is for Fury to price himself out of the Wilder rematch by asking for a King’s ransom.

Fury’s weight and movement are looking good thus far. He looked like he didn’t pack on a ton of weight over the Christmas holidays by eating too much.

Fury still needs to lose more weight before he faces Wilder. The 6’9″ Tyson ran out of gas in the later rounds in their fight on December 1, and this made it possible for Wilder to cut off the ring and drop him twice. The rematch could be a different story though than the first one. Wilder knows how to reach Fury’s chin with his power shots. The knockdown that Wilder scored in the 12th round over Fury is going to be firmly imprinted into his mind, and he’ll take advantage of that for the rematch.

In looking at the video, Fury’s movement looks great, but it’s predictable. He moves around the ring, but then he always to stop in order to throw meaningful punches. The flicking jabs that Fury throws on the move aren’t going to win enough rounds for him to beat Wilder or Anthony Joshua. If Fury wants to beat Wilder, he has stop running and stand and fight. That’s the whole problem. When Fury does stand and fight, he gets hit hard by the 6’7″ Wilder, as we saw in the 9th and 12th rounds. Fury was put down hard in both of those rounds by powerful right hands. Fury was able to make it through eight rounds solely on his ability to move. In the rematch with Wilder, Fury has to be able to be able to stand and fight him. The judges are not going to give Fury rounds based on his fancy footwork, and his ability to evade the more aggressive Wilder.

“The reward has to match the risk. We feel we’ve been done unjustly,” Davison said to IFL TV about the perspective rematch against Wilder. “It has to be a big reward…The difference is they need a rematch for their team, because he’s [Wilder] not looked on as a champion. His credibility as a champion has dropped, because a high percentage of people thought Tyson won the fight,” Davison said.

Davison sounds like he and Fury are ambivalent about making the rematch with Wilder. If Team Fury doesn’t want the rematch with Wilder, then they can push for a fight with IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua. That’s a fight that the boxing world wants to see. Obviously, it Fury’s negotiating position that he won’t be going into the negotiations with Joshua’s promoter coming off of a win over Wilder. Fury trying to justify that he deserves a 50-50 deal based on the 12 round draw that he got against Wilder won’t hold water in trying to get the 50-50 deal that he wants against Joshua. Fury needs the win over Wilder, and he needs to have the World Boxing Council heavyweight title in his possession before he starts negotiating the fight with Joshua.