By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford says Deontay Wilder didn’t look good from the 2nd round against Tyson Fury in their rematch last weekend in Las Vegas. Crawford noticed that Wilder’s punching power was missing, and his legs looked weak.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), looking as big as a small house at 273 lbs, was able to stand directly in front of Wilder and drop bombs on him without worrying about anything coming back. Fury stopped Wilder in the 7th round in a two-knockdown performance at the MGM Grand Arena.
Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) didn’t look with it from the third round after getting clipped with a right-hand shot from Fury that landed to the back of his head. That was the beginning of the end for Wilder.
Wilder was never the same after the third round knockdown
Just like Anthony Joshua, once Wilder hit the deck in the third, his legs were gone from that point on, and he was ineffective. He didn’t have the base for him to throw his big shots.
Fury was doing a lot of fouling with the constant headlocks and punching to the back of the head. Wilder looked like he didn’t figure on Fury turning the match into an MMA affair, but he should have been ready. You got to be ready to fight fire with fire and use the same dirty tricks that Fury was if you want to beat him.
Wilder’s corner should have thrown in the towel earlier
“They should have thrown it [the towel] in a little earlier. Wilder didn’t look good from the 2nd round,” said Terence Crawford to secondsout in talking about Deontay’s loss to Fury. “He didn’t have no legs, and he didn’t have no power on his shots. I think he was really off today for some reason.
“Tyson Fury pressed the action from round one,” said Crawford. “He doubled up his jab, he used a lot of feints, and he was still right in front of Deontay Wilder. I don’t think Deontay Wilder is used to people standing their ground right there in front of him,” said Crawford.
It wouldn’t have mattered had Fury stayed on the outside for this fight. Once Wilder was hurt from the third-round knockdown, his legs weren’t there, and he couldn’t throw with power. In fact, Wilder stopped throwing power shots entirely from round 3. The only punches Wilder was throwing were in the clinch, and those were mostly retaliatory shots.
He couldn’t get any leverage on the punches due to Fury being on top of him. Fury was like a big bear in close, and he resembled a huge professional wrestler. The last place Wilder needed to be was in a clinch with Fury, and yet he allowed that to happen repeatedly.
Crawford: It’ll be hard for Deontay to beat Fury in the third fight
“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of hard. Tyson Fury fought as if he didn’t respect his power,” said Crawford when asked what adjustments Wilder should make to beat Fury in the trilogy fight. “As I told everybody from the jump, the one thing that Tyson Fury has in the bag is he tasted Tyson Fury’s power before in the first fight, and he got up. That gave him all the confidence in the world, ‘I can take your power.
“Now, I can do more the second time around rather than the first time,’ because he had the confidence. When he got knocked down [in the first fight], he got back up and potentially won that round. I have been thought that he’s the best heavyweight in the world,” said Crawford about Fury.
“I just thought that Wilder had the best punch. He beat the man that beat the man. He [Fury] beat Klitschko when Klitschko was considered the best heavyweight in the world, and that’s it,” said Crawford in paying Fury a huge compliment.
Wilder doesn’t punch hard enough in close for Fury to respect his power. With Wilder’s accuracy being poor, Fury is able to throw a jab and then move to the inside in one motion. Once in close, Fury was hammering Wilder with shots. Wilder was getting mugged in broad daylight, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
Wilder couldn’t handle Fury’s pressure
“I think the pressure Tyson Fury brought is what was wrong with Wilder,” said Shawn Porter on ESPN’s First Take. “He’s talking about having a hurt leg, and he delivers his power off his back foot. That’s clearly an excuse, and that could lead to. The kind of pressure, it doesn’t allow your mind to rest.
“He will be back on top. The toughest part of this conversation is the gap where he is and where he needs to go,” Porter said of Wilder. “All those people we speak on, George Foreman and Ali. They all had pedigrees, and they all had backgrounds.
“He just does not have that deep background nor does he have the time to make up for that,” said Porter about Wilder not having the same strong amateur background to help him come back from the loss to Fury.
Wilder isn’t coordinated, so it doesn’t matter that he didn’t have a great amateur background that Foreman and Muhammad Ali had. Even if Wilder did have a lot of amateur fights, he’d still have the same problems he’s having now.
Wilder can’t afford to delay third Fury fight
“There was so much pressure on Deontay Wilder,” said Tim Bradley. “He couldn’t standstill. Tyson Fury put on so much smart pressure that it kind of burned Wilder out. If you don’t put him right back with Fury, Fury said he’s got a couple of more fights, and he’s out the game.
“So he’s got two more fights now,” said Bradley. “He said he’ll be done. ‘I’m going to sail away. And I’m going to have one more fight with Deontay Wilder, and then I’m going to fight in MMA, and then I’m gone. I’m out of here. He said that. You definitely want to get checked out. The bleeding in the ear, that concerns me a little bit.
“I’m sure he has a busted eardrum. Nothing is going to make him happy for a while,” Bradley said of Wilder. “He’s going to be depressed, he’s going to be quiet. You can have all the money in the world, but nothing is going to fill that void of not having that championship strap around your waist,” said Bradley about Wilder.
It’s not likely that Fury is going to retire after his last 2 fights run out under his existing contract with Top Rank. The way that Fury is fighting now, he’s going to re-up with Top Rank, as long as they can offer him the kind of money he can get elsewhere.
