By Scott Gilfoid: Former welterweight champion Andre Berto is interested in seeing how Deontay Wilder comes back mentally in his trilogy fight against Tyson Fury when the two battle it out again. Berto sees the loss by Wilder as one that is potentially going to be difficult for him to bounce back from.
Like a lot of fans, Berto wants to see how former WBC heavyweight champion comes back mentally from his embarrassing 7th round stoppage loss to Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) on February 22 last month.
With the situation with the coronavirus, we might see the trilogy fight between the two giant heavyweights Deontay and Tyson anytime soon, however. They’re supposed to be fighting by July 18, and if that doesn’t happen due to the COVID 19 pandemic, it leaves open the question of whether Deontay’s rematch clause will still be good.
Can Deontay come back mentally?
“Of course, a lot of people saying Wilder got exposed, which the crazy thing about it is they already knew he had these flaws,” said Berto to Fighthype. “They already knew he wasn’t the greatest boxer. They had a fighter that was fearless and didn’t care if he got hit, and he just beat up the bully. Now we have to see how Wilder comes back mentally.
“When you’re in a position of power for so long and having the equalizer [right hand] that nobody else has, and you know you can get anybody out of there that you wanted to, and somebody exposes all that in front of everyone, you have to deal with that mentally when you go back home,” Berto said in talking about Wilder. “You don’t want that nightmare to come back. You need to cross your T’s and dot your I’s,” said Berto of Wilder.
It goes without staying that Wilder will bounce back from his loss, and come into the third fight with Fury looking like a new man. Now that Wilder knows what Fury will be doing in terms of bum-rushing him 24/7, he’ll be ready to brain him with shots. If this fight turn out to be a rabbit punching clinic, it’ll be whoever lands the better illegal shots.
Hopefully, there’s a qualified referee that can stop those type of shots. Gilfoid wouldn’t want either fighter to make a mockery of Marquess of Queensberry rules of boxing.
Is Wilder’s confidence gone?
“‘ I was in there and I hit him with 2 or 3 shots and he didn’t fall down. He did some things in there that I didn’t like. All those feints, and all those quick jabs. I couldn’t get out of the way,'” Berto said of what is going through Deontay’s mind in reliving his loss to Fury. “We have to see how he’s going to come back mentally from this.
“Not too many people can, especially a lot of really good fighters. Once they get their confidence broken, it’s hard to come back to get in that ring and face that boogeyman again. It’s hard to get that confidence back. It’s going to be tough because Fury is going to come in a lot more confident. He’s going to fine-tune that same type of game plan,” Berto said on Fury coming in stronger for the third fight with Deontay.
Wilder isn’t going to give up mentally after his loss to Fury. He’s coming going to come back for the third fight looking to send him into the stratosphere with every shot he throws. I mean, Wilder isn’t going to be suddenly afraid to throw right hands with mean intentions because he lost to Fury. If that’s what Berto is getting at, he’s kidding himself.
Wilder is the type of fighter that will be dangerous whether he’s confident or not. That right hand of Wilder’s is like a loaded gun. It can go off at any time, and Fury could be sorry if he tries to bum rush him in the third fight like he did last time. That worked for Fury last time, but mostly because he debilitated Deontay with rabbit shots first.
Fury’s rabbit punching gave Wilder problems
After Wilder was disarmed by Fury’s pinpoint punches to the back of his head, then he was able to safely bum rush him and have his way. Should Fury have been penalized for his rabbit punching, I’d say that’s big YES. Sadly, referees nowadays have forgotten about controlling the rabbit punching, and they focus almost entirely on just policing the illegal low blows.
Talk about your misplaced priorities. Had the referee been on his JOB, Fury might have been disqualified for all the rabbit shots that he hit Wilder with last February. If I’d been the referee that worked that fight, Fury would have been on his way out of there by the third round if he failed to listen to my warnings for rabbit punching.
Berto says Wilder could come unhinged early
“It’s very easy if that game plan doesn’t go as you expected in the first three minutes [of the rematch] to think, ‘It’s happening again,’ and that could throw everything that you wanted to do out the window and we could see it happen again,” said Berto about Wilder and his trilogy against Fury.
Berto could be wrong about Wilder giving up mentally if things don’t go his way early in the third fight with Fury. That’s not how Wilder works. He’s used to losing a lot of rounds against his opponent. In Wilder’s two fights with Luis Ortz, he was behind when he came back to stop him. Even against Gerald Washington, Wilder was losing when he stopped him.
The most important thing that Wilder needs to focus on is not to be thrown off by Fury’s numerous feints that he uses. Fury constantly feints, and has the effect against some fighters to make them hesitant to throw shots. In Fury’s two fights with Wilder, his nonstop feints made him hesitant to throw punches. It worked for Fury in his win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 as well.
McDermott showed how to beat Fury
The one guy that the feints didn’t work for Fury was against ‘Big’ John McDermott in their first fight in September 2009. Fury tried using the feints, but McDermott was all over him, ignoring his efforts to trick him by nailing him with body and headshots. Although Fury beat McDermott by a 10 round decision, it was a highly controversial decision.
Most boxing fans that saw that fight viewed as robbery. McDermott had gotten the better of Fury, who looked like he was on the verge of tears after the fight. If Wilder fights as McDermott did in the first fight, Fury’s feints will be useless.
If Wilder is going to make an addition to his training team for the third fight, he needs McDermott because he knows how to beat Fury.
Berto talks about Fury’s flapping gloves
“It doesn’t matter if he had his hand all the way in his glove, he took care of business that night,” said Berto of Fury. “That would make me even more crazy because he wasn’t even punching me with his full fist. What is that going to do? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Berto on Wilder not gaining anything if he thinks that Fury was hitting him with his gloves only partially on,” said Berto on Wilder and Fury.
Wilder’s boxing fans are the ones that have been talking conspiracy in terms of Fury’s gloves from the second fight. Wisely, Wilder hasn’t chosen to speak on Fury’s flapping gloves.
Like Berto says, there would be no real advantage for Fury if his gloves were loose for the fight. He was still hitting Wilder with shots, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if they were loose. Fury would have done more damage if his gloves were on tightly than with them flapping around all night long.
The punches that Wilder was hurt with by Fury were ones that he landed cleanly to the back of his head. Those shots were ones with Fury landing with what appeared to be the knuckle portion of the gloves and not by the loose flapping part.
The positives from Glove-gate
The good that will come out of the glove-gate is that Fury will likely be scrutinized closely when he’s having his gloves put on for the trilogy match with Wilder, and probably for the remainder of his career. Fighters won’t want Fury to be hitting him with loose gloves.
If this is something that Fury did intentionally to try and game the system, it won’t be something he can continue to use moving forward. Moreover, Fury’s habit of throwing punches to the back of Wilder’s head will likely be monitored by the referee that works the third fight. You can bet that Team Wilder will alert the referee to watch for the illegal rabbit punches, which are far more dangerous than low blows.
