By Kenneth Friedman: Tyson Fury’s win over WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder effectively created a blueprint that ALL heavyweights will now follow, and they’ll beat him, according to Eddie Hearn.
He now believes that even 41-year-old Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz, who Wilder twice knocked out, will follow the Fury blueprint to BEAT UP, and knockout Wilder. Hearn also thinks Andy Ruiz Jr. would have an easy time defeating Wilder by using Fury’s blueprint. Basically, Wilder’s career is over with as a major player, as far as Hearn is concerned.
Hearn isn’t buying Wilder’s heavy 40+ lb costume excuse that he gave about his legs being weakened from wearing the thing during his ring-walk. He also isn’t paying attention to Wilder’s post-fight comments about Fury repeatedly hitting him with rabbit punches throughout the fight.
In the case of the rabbit punches, those are actually provable. Those can be seen on video, Fury nailing Wilder with punches to the back of the head in every round. But the uniform excuse, you have to take Wilder’s word for it supposedly weakening his legs.
Wilder can’t improve for Fury trilogy – Hearn
“It’s more difficult because it’s a different type of fight,” said Hearn to secondsout when asked if Fury will give Joshua more problems than Wilder would have. “I’ve always believed Anthony Joshua beats Deonty Wilder, but I also know it’s a dangerous fight.
“It’s still a dangerous fight for Fury in the third fight,” said Hearn.” But watching that back, my worry for Deontay Wilder is everyone will do the same thing. You can’t make adjustments because I don’t believe he [Wilder] has the skills to make the adjustments.
“Look at the adjustments AJ made in the Andy Ruiz rematch. That took skill. He [Joshua] made adjustments. I don’t believe Wilder can make adjustments in the third Fury fight,” said Hearn.
It might not be as easy as Hearn believes for Fury to beat Wilder a second time. For one, Wilder now knows how Fury will attack him in the third fight, so he’ll have 10 weeks to train for that.
For last Saturday’s rematch, Wilder looked like he was surprised by Fury coming at him to maul him at close quarters. He shouldn’t have been surprised because Fury had been broadcasting what he planned on doing against Wilder for weeks before the fight.
Hearn: Andy Ruiz Jr. would terrorize Wilder
“Can you imagine if Andy Ruiz boxed Deontay Wilder right now after seeing that?” said Hearn. “He would absolutely terrorize him because the mystique’s gone. ‘Don’t go too close to Wilder. Wait for the right hand.’ Now it’s, ‘I’ll just get my way in and beat you up.’
“Whether that’s true or not, whether he had an off night or Fury is amazing, that’s now for Wilder to prove,” said Hearn.
Ruiz looked so bad in his defeat against Anthony Joshua last December, it’s difficult to picture him beating Wilder. It’s possible. If Wilder doesn’t learn to keep off the ropes, Andy will take him apart in the same way Fury did.
A lot of fighters will probably walk Wilder down from now on, and try and do what Fury did, but he’s going to have a lot of practice to adjust to the pressure. Some fighters can adjust to pressure, and do well. Thomas ‘Hitman’ Hearns, a fighter that Wilder is often compared to, struggled when he fought guys that pressured him.
He lost to Marvin Hagler and Iran Barkley, both of which took the fight to him. Hearn’s loss to Sugar Ray Leonard was a result of the pressure that was put on him late in the fight.
Eddie wants Wilder to step aside to let Joshua vs. Fury happen
“Maybe,” said Hearn when told that Joshua will be facing Kubrat Pulev next. “When you talk about undisputed, the window is very small, and the window might be next. What’s going to happen is Bob Arum has got Tyson Fury and Kubrat Pulev, right?
“So he can maneuver that situation. If Bob came to us tomorrow and said, ‘Great news, I got Pulev to wait. Do you want to do Fury? It’s done for June or July. Then there’s Wilder now. Wilder, I don’t know if he’s officially exercised the rematch clause.
“He’s said he’s going to. We’ll do it anyway, because he might be thinking, ‘Even if I get paid off to step aside, I’ve got to exercise the rematch clause. But then once you’re paying him off, paying him off and paying him off, it gets harder and harder to do,” said Hearn.
Wilder can make some good money if he agrees to the step aside fee that Hearn is talking about. However, Wilder already said he wants the rematch with Fury right away. Unless he changed his mind, we’ll see those two fighting in the summer.
The good news is that the Wilder-Fury 3 fight must take place by July. As long as the winner isn’t injured, we could see them face Joshua in November or December.
Hearn hopes Wilder vs. Fury 3 takes place in July
“We spoke to MTK and Bob Arum, and said, ‘Let me know if that’s even a possibility.’ Right now the focus is to try and get the Pulev fight signed, and that should be gone in the next couple of days,” said Hearn. “And then if there is an opportunity in the next couple of weeks we’ll see. Yeah,” said Hearn when asked if that’s what Arum said.
“Bob wants to make Fury-Joshua. It’s the biggest fight, and one of the biggest fights of all time, and certainly the biggest fight in boxing right now by a mile,” Hearn said. “So everybody wants to make it. If they do the rematch, I hope it’s in July, because then we can do the winner in December.
“If they wait until September or October, don’t forget that Dillian Whyte is the mandatory [challenger with the WBC] for February of next year,” said Hearn on the Wilder vs. Fury 3 fight. “Then we start losing belts. Listen, if we lose belts, we lose belts, but wouldn’t it be great to do it for the undisputed championship, particularly between two Brits,” said Hearn.
It sounds like a great idea by Hearn, but Arum is already talking about wanting to move the Wilder-Fury fight back to October or November. If they move the fight back to one of those months, it’ll impact WBC mandatory Dillian Whyte. His mandated title shot is supposed to happen by February of next year.
That’s no good. The Wilder vs. Fury 3 winner won’t want to waste time-fighting Whyte. so he’ll either be given a step aside offer or they’ll probably vacate the WBC title.