By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury is back in the Essex gym training for his yet to be scheduled defense of his WBC heavyweight title against Deontay Wilder this year. Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) looked pretty good working on the mitts, throwing combinations, and loading up with a lot of punches.
What stands out about Fury’s workout is the way that he was putting a lot of power behind his punches. These weren’t the pitty-pat shots that we’d seen from ‘The Gypsy King’ through most of his career. He’s now sitting down on his shots like never before, which suggests that Fury fancies himself as a puncher. I think Fury has now officially lost the plot.
Fury sees himself as a puncher now
You hate to say it, but this could be a bad thing for Fury to change his basic DNA from a pure boxer to that of a puncher because he could make it easy on Deontay. Most boxing fans would agree that the former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) only has a puncher’s chance in his trilogy fight with Fury.
Well, if that’s the reality of the situation, then Fury is going to be giving Wilder every opportunity in the world to land one of his big home run shots. Wilder is hungry for revenge, and he sees Fury as food.
The worst thing you can do is bring food to an angry lion without protection. If Fury continues to go under the delusion of viewing himself as a knockout artist, he could get poleaxed by Wilder next time they fight in November or December.
Hearn talks about the biggest danger to Joshua vs. Fury fight
“I gave an interview where I said we’d agreed with Team Fury and in writing with ourselves that we would proceed with a two-fight deal in 2021 on these agreed on splits moving forward with these two fights,” said Hearn to SI Podcast.
“They [Joshua and Fury] both have a fight in between. There’s a couple of network questions that need answering as well. We know we got to find a venue. But generally when you have two fighters that look at each other and say, ‘I’m in, and these are the terms, and I agree to it,’ the rest is the nitty-gritty, down to the individual teams and people. We’re not under too much pressure to get it over the line, to be honest.
“So the biggest danger for the fight and the biggest concern is a loss in between [for Joshua and Fury] rather than the remaining elements of the deal. Whenever the financial elements are confirmed, and both guys are happy, generally, they’re willing to move forward,” said Hearn.
Joshua may need to fight two mandatory challengers in Kubrat Pulev and Oleksandr Usyk before he can get to the Fury fight. If Joshua doesn’t vacate his WBO belt, he could lose to Usyk next year. Likewise, Fury still needs to defend against Wilder in December and then Dillian Whyte next February. Those are dangerous fights, especially with Fury thinking he’s a slugger now.
Why Eddie announced Joshua-Fury two-fight deal
“The situation last week, I said to AJ, ‘Look, I’m going to confirm now that we know that we’ve got to finalize the contract, but are you in on this split, are you in for two fights, and are you willing to commit?’
“The answer was ‘100 percent.’ A lot of people said to me, ‘Did you do that [make a premature announcement for Joshua vs. Fury’s two-fight deal] because you felt that boxing needed a shot in the arm?’ Not really but kind of. When I’ve got good news like that, it’s amazing news for the sport, and we’re in this year, yeah, I want you to know. I want you to know that next year will be one of the biggest fights of all time, and it will happen.
“I said to Sky Sports at the time, ‘Just so you know; the [Joshua-Fury] deal isn’t done, done. So if you could phrase your story like that, I’d appreciate it.’ The story actually said, ‘Hearn confirms AJ vs. Fury is done’ or something like that. Thanks or that,” Hearn said.
Some boxing fans think Hearn’s true reason for making the premature announcement of the two-fight between AJ and Fury is because of the anger a lot of boxing fans have about Joshua over the recent speech that he made at a rally.
A lot of fans were and still are furious at Joshua about some of the things he said in that speech, and they’re saying that they won’t ever purchase any of his fights again on pay-per-view. As such, was Hearn’s real intention for prematurely announcing the AJ-Fury 2-fight deal a tactic to distract the angry fans? It could be. You have to admit that Hearn picked the best possible time for him to make the announcement.
Making the fight was easy says Hearn
“I think they were [easier] because both guys and both teams want the fight, and we’ve back and forth with the Wilder negotiations for so long,” said Hearn on the negotiations between him for the Joshua vs. Fury two-fight deal. “I was on the then, sending e-mails to people, and I had a couple of meetings with these people.
“I know deep down that they [Team Deontay Wilder] didn’t want that fight at the time. I’m not saying Wilder was scared. Wilder might not have even known. There was a time where during that period where I was sending three to five e-mails a week, and I would not hear back.
“Then I would see an article saying, ‘Hearn don’t want the fight.’ I’m thinking, ‘Am I going mad here?’ In this instance, what I had to overcome was Team Fury is a big team with many different people involved.
“On the AJ side, it’s AJ, and he’s my boss, and it’s me. He has a management team, but generally, during negotiations, you’re dealing with me. It doesn’t matter how many people are on one team. If you want the fight, you make the fight happen. And everybody I think realizes, especially coming through the pandemic, that we have to do this.
“Whether we like it or not, we have to do it. We’re idiots if we don’t do it, and Fury wants it, and Joshua wants it. There’s so much money in the fight. So whether you’re in it for greed or ego legacy, it ticks every box. So that’s why I’m very confident that even with a couple of hurdles to overcome, we will have it done,” said Hearn.
Despite what Hearn says, the Fury vs. Joshua fight isn’t entirely made yet.