By Jeff Aronow: Trainer Buddy McGirt feels that Deontay Wilder is going to have trouble on July 24th if he goes out there with the intent of hurting Tyson Fury in their trilogy match at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
McGirt noticed how tense Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) was during his press conference with Fury, and he sees him heading in the wrong direction. He feels that Wilder needs to be calm like Fury and focus on being smart and relaxed inside the ring.
It’s going to be difficult for Wilder to be the way that McGirt would like him to be, given the chip that he has on his shoulders right now.
Wilder feels that he was robbed of a knockout in his first fight with Fury in 2018 when the referee strangely gave a count after Tyson was knocked cold in the 12th.
In their second fight, Wilder questions Fury’s gloves with the way they were flapping around, seemingly sliding off his hands.
Wilder should calm down
“I think that he could but right now, he’s so caught up in getting revenge that he’s burning a lot of necessary energy mentally,” said trainer Buddy McGirt to Fighthype when asked if he believes Wilder can avenge his loss to Tyson Fury.
“I think what he should do is when he goes into the fight, don’t go into it with ‘I’m going to kill him’ attitude.
“Go into it ‘I’m going to beat him,’ but you’ve got to be smart about it. You can’t go in there, ‘I’m going to crush him, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.’ Tyson Fury is always relaxed, he’s always calm in a fight, and the calmest fighter is always the better fighter,” McGirt said.
It will be hard for Wilder’s new coach Malik Scott to get him to stay calm for this fight because he seems intent on doing damage to Fury.
The way Wilder was talking after the recent press conference, he wants to hurt Fury, and he’s not likely to be relaxed. Wilder has looked great in working on the mitts with Malik, but he’s not inside the ring with Fury.
Theoretically, if Wilder could stay calm the way he is when he’s working out with Malik, Fury might be in trouble.
The Bronze Bomber must be smart
“Honestly, I think it’s really simple things, and one of the things is studying and knowing the fighter,” said McGirt on how to go about coming back from a loss.
“You got to study a fighter, watch them on the bag. On the mitts, you can’t really study a fighter. I can look good on the mitts, I’m 57.
You can hold the mitts for me and I can look like Ray Robinson. Yeah,” McGirt said when asked if he’d seen Wilder on the mitts. “Everyone is, ‘Oh,’ but everybody can do that.
Let’s see what he’s learning when he’s in the ring shadow boxing, what is he learning when he’s hitting the heavy bag.
What is he learning, what is he doing differently, and what is he trying to do to make the fight easier to be victorious? Show that.
“So he can’t go in there with the attitude, ‘I’m going to kill him.’ He’s got to be smart about this when he goes in there with Tyson Fury,” McGirt said.
It’s one thing for Wilder to insist that he’ll be smart and calm inside the ring, but him actually doing it is another matter.
Unless Wilder can let go of his mental baggage from his two fights with Fury, he’s going to exhaust himself needlessly trying to score a fast knockout.
An early knockout for Wilder would be doable if he knew how to fight on the inside. If Wilder could generate the kind of punching power on the inside that he does outside, Fury would be in serious trouble.
Fury’s best chance of winning is to mug Wilder in close the way he did last time.
Wilder has no clue how to fight on the inside, and Fury and his trainer Sugar Hill Steward spotted that flaw and took advantage.
How much did Wilder’s loss take out of him?
“It all depends,” said McGirt about how he thinks the Fury vs. Wilder III fight will play out. “I don’t know how much that last fight took out of him, Wilder.
“If it didn’t damage him, it’s going to be an interesting fight, but he’s got to go in there with a different frame of mind.
“Like at the press conference, he’s all riled up, Malik [Scott] is all riled up. No, you don’t need that around him right now.
“You need someone that is going to keep him calm, focused, and concentrating on what he needs to do to win the fight,” said Scott.
Wilder didn’t take a lot of trauma in his last fight against Fury. If anything, what could negatively impact Wilder’s performance in the trilogy is him fighting in an out-of-control manner, angrily throwing windmill shots, and leaving himself open to being countered by Fury.
What McGirt says about Wilder needing to stay calm is right because he’s not likely to win the fight with Fury if he empties his tank in the first three rounds.
If Wilder swings and repeatedly misses early on, he’s going to gassed out by the fourth and easy pickings for Fury to finish him again.
Fury already getting the better of Deontay
“He’s won the first two rounds already just by being like that,” said McGirt about Fury being calm at the press conference with Deontay. “It matters a whole lot.
“All the great fighters you see, they’re the ones that are the most calm, the most relaxed. You see everything, you do everything, but when you tense and you’re trying to kill the guy, they just pick you apart.
“Nah, Nah, Nah, they were intense when they got you hurt,” said McGirt about Mike Tyson and Roberto Duran being intense fighters. “Duran was very smart.
“A lot of people really underestimated Duran. Duran was a really smart fighter, very tricky on the inside.
“Yes, he had that killer mentality, but he knew how to break you down. So did Mike [Tyson], he knew how to break you down. Mike was the greatest intimidation, and then he’d break you down,” said McGirt.
Wilder already looks like he’s got a huge chip on his shoulders from the last fight, believing that Fury cheated him.
Whether or not Fury did or didn’t, Wilder needs to forget about all that and focus on training and not making the same mistakes as last time.
Deontay needs to let his trainer Malik Scott make sure that Fury’s gloves are wrapped correctly, and there’s no funny business going on with his gloves.
Moreover, Malik needs to talk to the referee before the fight to alert him to be on the lookout for Fury throwing rabbit punches during the contest.
If Fury starts throwing rabbit punches like last time, Malik should speak to the referee in between rounds to tell him what’s going on.
Most referees will pay attention to that kind of stuff and nip it in the bud, but if not, Wilder will have to fight fire with fire by fighting dirty.
