Caleb Plant: ‘Tyson Fury BULLIED the bully’ Deontay Wilder 

By Boxing News - 02/24/2020 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Caleb Plant’s theory on why Deontay Wilder lost to Tyson Fury is he met up with a fighter that was going to ‘bully the bully’ by taking the fight to him. IBF super-middleweight champion Plant thinks Wilder didn’t know what to do when facing a guy that was pressuring him rather than the other way around.

Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) pulled off a career-best upset in stopping WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) in the 7th round last Saturday night in front of a packed crowd at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The fight was shown on ESPN and FOX Sports Pay-Per-View in the U.S and on BT Sport Box Office in the UK.

Plant suspects that Wilder, 34, was worn down possibly from back to back training camps for his fights against Luis Ortiz last November and Fury last weekend. Wilder was losing to the 40-year-old Ortiz through the first six rounds before stopping him in the 7th round in their rematch on November 23.

Deontay Wilder needs some rest

“He wasn’t really throwing no punches back, and it’s his corner’s job to look out for their fighter’s best interest,” said Plant to secondsout. “Of course, Deontay always disagrees with that, and wants to go out on his shield, so you got to respect that. But he just looked a little bit flat from the beginning.

“I don’t know. It could have been two training camps back to back so close,” said Caleb in trying to figure out why Wilder was so flat against Fury. “They can wear you out, but I’m not sure what it was.

“Sometimes when you bully the bully, they don’t know how to take it so well,” Plant in trying to figure out why Wilder lost. “I don’t know if the two training camps back to back had an effect on him, but nobody knows for sure.

“Maybe take some rest. That would be my thing,” said Plant when asked what Wilder needs to do to beat Fury in the third fight. “Rest your feet, come back clear-headed and get back to it.”

Wilder’s fatigue problems could have also been a result of him coming in at a career-high weight of 230 lbs. In Wilder’s previous career-high of 229-lbs for his fight against Eric Molina in 2015, he looked lethargic and slow, as if the extra muscle that he packed on for that fight had slowed him down. In Wilder’s last fight against Ortiz, he weighed 219-lbs, and he looked a lot quicker and more energetic.

Hurd: Tyson Fury is the truth

“I think what it was, he got hurt in the first round, and I don’t think he could ever recuperate from that time,” said former IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd. “It looked like his leg wasn’t there. It looked like he was fighting off his heart.

“Nobody believed that because everybody thought Tyson Fury is an idiot to do that against a puncher like Deontay Wilder, but he came out and did exactly what he said. You could see from the first round that he wanted to get that second-round knockout that he was talking about. I think him getting hurt in the first round is what it made a factor in the entire fight.

“He never recuperated. I see him bouncing back,” Jarrett said about Wilder. “He was the best heavyweight until running into Fury. All he had left was Anthony Joshua. The heavyweight division is still up for grabs.

“Before tonight, I always thought it was going to be Joshua against Wilder. But what Fury showed me tonight, no way in hell am I going with anyone other than Fury. He is the truth, and he is everything that he says he is,” said Hurd.

Fury putting pressure on Wilder obviously had a huge impact on the outcome of the fight, since it didn’t allow him to rest. Also, Wilder couldn’t get the leverage on his shots with Fury crowding him, and getting in close. Fury’s own punches were smothered on the inside, but his punches still bothered Wilder.

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