By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury’s trainer Sugar Hill Steward says Anthony Joshua will have to prepare for 2 different Fury’s inside the ring for their unification match in June.
Sugar Hill assumes that the aggressive approach that Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) used in his last two fights against Otto Wallin and Deontay Wilder will work against Joshua. That may not be the case.
Sugar Hill could unknowingly be leading Fury into a massacre if he encourages him to bum rush Joshua as he did against Deontay in their rematch in February 2020.
The 4 reasons Fury was successful against Wilder:
- Rabbit punch that Fury hurt Wilder with from the third
- 40-lb weight advantage for Fury
- Bum-rushing attacking style
- Wilder’s inability to fight on the inside
Apart from the illegal rabbit punching that Fury used with great success against Wilder, none of those things will likely work against Joshua.
Fury won’t have a 40-pound weight advantage against AJ, and it would be foolish for him to go on a mad-dash frontal attack. That’s what Joshua wants Fury to do because he’ll chew him up right away if he fights that way.
IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion (24-1, 22 KOs) will have to be ready for two different Gypsy Kings on the night, which could make things difficult.
As we saw recently in Fury’s last fight against former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs), he’s capable of going on the attack to overpower his opponent.
“Tyson’s unpredictable in the ring; he does not know what he’s going to do next,” said Sugar Hill to Mybettingsites. “Maybe he will just come out and just box [against Anthony Joshua].
“Who knows what the game plan will be. Everybody has to think about so many different things with Tyson. Is he going to come out at you or not?” said Sugar Hill in trying to sound mysterious.
At this point, it’s obvious that Fury is going to attack Joshua because he’s tasted too much success in his last two fights when being aggressive.
Fury isn’t going to forget about how well he did against the light-hitting Wallin and the deeply flawed Wilder when going on the attack.
It’s fair to say that Fury’s ego is unchecked, and he’s walking on water, drunk on his recent success with his new pattern of fighting.
Whatever Sugar Hill says about Joshua needing to train for two different Fury’s should be considered as just blather because we’re only likely to see one Fury. That’s the aggressive Fury that we saw against Wilder and Wallin recently.
The only chance there is that Fury will revert to the spoiling, sneaky trickster fighter he was in the past is if things start going badly right from the start against Joshua.
In other words, if Fury gets poleaxed in the first two rounds by Joshua, he’ll go into the panic mode and start boxing like mad.
Fury will have no choice but to revert to his old fighting style out of necessity to survive. Of course, that’s assuming that Fury can survive a knockout against Joshua.
It’s a completely different story for Fury to get dropped by Joshua compared to Wilder.
When Fury was knocked out cold by Wilder in the 12th round in their controversial first fight in 2018, Deontay could not connect with his power shots to finish him after he woke up and dragged himself to his feet.
Wilder’s terrible hand-eye coordination prevented him from landing the finisher dispute Fury being there for the taking.
If Fury gets knocked down similarly by Joshua, as he did against Wilder, the referee will stop the fight on the spot because he won’t want to receive the same backlash that Jack Reiss received from the first Wilder-Fury fight when he gave a count while Fury was out cold on the canvas in the 12th.
But if Fury does get up and resume fighting against Joshua, his chances of making it out of the round are slim. Joshua’s accuracy is spot on, and he’s not likely to miss Fury with him staggering around the ring like a drunk on Saturday night.
“Now you have to train two different ways; somebody coming at you and somebody boxing you,” said Sugar Hill bout Fury.
“You have to prepare for so many different styles with Tyson Fury; that makes things a lot more difficult.”
As I said, Fury is going to use the same aggressive style that he’s employed in his last two fights when he faces Joshua.
He’s not going to go back to spoiling because he’s going to want to beat Joshua sensationally rather than making it ugly. Either way, it’s going to be rough going for Fury against AJ no matter what he tries.