By Scott Gilfoid: Tyson Fury posted a message on his Instagram site on Wednesday to Deontay Wilder ahead of their scheduled February 22 rematch. The gist of it is Fury says Wilder can’t hit him. In other words, Fury plans on moving a lot for 12 rounds to keep Wilder from unloading on him with his right hand like last time when he knocked him out cold.
With the Wilder-Fury 2 rematch being on pay-per-view, the last thing Fury needs to be doing is giving the impression that he’s going to run from Deontay the entire fight. American boxing fans want to see action, especially when they’re paying to watch fights. Fury seems to have things mixed up in his head about what the U.S fans to see.
Fury: Wilder won’t be able to hit me
“Don’t go sleep on me, boy, because you can’t hit what you can’t see,” said an out of breath Fury on his Instagram. “You couldn’t finish me last time.”
All that wasted movement by Fury that he showed in his workout video to Wilder is what caused him problems last time they fought. Fury was bouncing all over the place, moving with no purpose, and tiring himself out for nothing.
By the time the fight reached the championship rounds [9-12], Fury had nothing left in the tank, and was knocked down twice. Movement is fine for a heavyweight if you’re young, and have the body for it. Fury isn’t young, and her certainly doesn’t possess the physique to be moving around nonstop. Wilder took full advantage of Fury’s fatigue by knocking him down twice, and basically knocking him out in the 12th.
With Fury’s Top Rank promoter Bob Arum predicting his rematch with Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) will do an excess of 2 million pay-per-view buys on ESPN and Fox, it’s important that the two heavyweights start building hype right away for their February fight.
Arum predicting 2 million buys for Wilder vs. Fury 2
If the rematch is going to bring in 2 million+ buys, then Wilder and Fury are both going to need to start giving interviews 24/7 with the media starting NOW to sell that fight.
There’s only 2 months to go before the Wilder-Fury 2 fight. If they don’t start selling the rematch now, it’s likely going to fall well short of Arum’s prediction of 2 million buys. Some boxing fans believe Wilder vs Fury 2 fight won’t even do 1 million buys. Last time they fought, the fight did 325,000 PPV buys. Unfortunately Fury hasn’t done anything to win over the U.S fans since then.
‘With ESPN and FOX backing the promotion, and with Comcast really, and the cable systems really enthusiastic, I’m looking at doing in excess of two million pay-per-view buys,” Arum said to the Everlast TALKBOX podcast.
Fury and Wilder fought to a 12 round draw last December. The judges scored it 114-112 for Fury, 115-111 for Wilder, and 113-113. Gilfoid had Wilder winning by a knockout in the 12th. I mean, that’s when the referee Jack Reiss should have stopped the fight after Fury was knocked down, and was lying on the canvas out cold.
Wilder thinks Reiss got caught up in Fury’s emotional story of him coming back from mental illness, so he decided not to halt the fight when poleaxed in the 12th. It was obvious that fight should have been halted, but the referee chose to give a count while Fury lay there looking badly hurt on the canvas.
Wilder is vowing to put Fury down and keep him there
Deontay says that when he drops Fury in the rematch on February 22, he won’t be able to get back up. He’s going to make sure that Fury won’t be able to get back up after he regains consciousness.
Fury has had two tune-up fights against Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin since his draw with Wilder, and he didn’t look good last tie out. Wallin staggered Fury, and cut him badly over his right eye. The ringside doctor let Fury continue to fight despite him having a horrific cut that later required 46 stitches to close.
Fury’s boxing fans see it as a positive that he was able to stay in the fight, and not lose by a cut stoppage. But you can also see it as a negative, because the cut likely wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if the match was stopped early on after Fury was injured in round 3.