Boxing Detective: Fury’s struggles may help him land Wilder rematch

By Raj Parmar - 09/16/2019 - Comments

By Raj Parmar: This past weekend, lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury was able to overcome a couple of deep cuts over his right eye to score a unanimous decision victory over heavy underdog Otto Wallin. Fury sustained the first cut in round 3 of the fight and seemed to be in danger of having the fight stopped as the cut grew bigger and blood poured down his face.

(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada)

Fury was however able to stay composed and land power punches on Wallin throughout the second half of the fight to score the decision win. It was not the dominant performance from Fury that many were expecting given how favored he was to take out Wallin.

Fury’s face looked badly damaged after the fight and Wallin had a few moments where he looked as if he was a flurry away from getting the fight stopped due to the cuts on Fury. While many fans are disappointed in Fury’s underwhelming performance, the showing may help Fury land a rematch with WBC champion Deontay Wilder.

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When Fury and Wilder battled to a draw in their first fight in 2018, the boxing world was eager for a rematch. Fury was coming out of a long layoff from the sport heading into the first Wilder fight and was able to outbox the hard hitting Wilder for long stretches of the fight. Since the first fight, Fury has KO’d German fighter Tom Schwarz while knocking off further ring rust that may be lingering from his layoff including his 12 rounds with Wallin.

Fury has aggressively campaigned for a rematch with Wilder and is confident he will be able to take down Wilder based on experience gained from the first fight and his continued ring activity. Fury had indicated a few weeks ago that the rematch was set for early 2020 before recently stating that Wilder was now leaning toward fighting the winner of Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz.

If there was any trouble from Fury’s end in getting closer to a rematch with Wilder, his performance against Wallin may help him land the Wilder rematch. With the damage that Wallin did to Fury, Wilder may have much more confidence knowing that he is a much more powerful puncher than Wallin and can inflict more serious punishment to Fury than Wallin could.

Therefore although Fury may receive some flack from boxing fans over his tougher than anticipated time with Wallin, the showing may help him reach his ultimate goal of getting Wilder in the ring again.