By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder let Tyson Fury know on Friday his thoughts on his COVID-19 postponement excuse in a post of his training video on Instagram. Wilder says Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) is going to “hell” for the “COVID-19 lie.”
Like many boxing fans on social media, Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) expresses skepticism about Fury’s COVID-19, believing that this was dreamed up to give him more time to train.
It would help obviously if Fury had posted a doctor’s note verifying that he had COVID-19. That would go a long way towards making his doubters, including Wilder, believe that he had tested positive.
Minus that happening, people will continue to believe that the postponement was because Fury wasn’t ready physically to step inside the ring with the dangerous Wilder. Getting in the ring with Wilder is like going into shark-invested waters.
With the extra time that Fury has because of the postponement, it’s going to help him bulk up to where he was the last time he fought Wilder.
Had Fury fought Wilder on July 24th as previously scheduled, he might not have enough size/bulk to overpower him with weight like he did a year ago.
Fury looked thin recently and not the bulked-out 270+ fighter who used his football lineman size to rough the slender 231-lb Wilder up last year.
In yesterday’s training video of Fury, he’s hitting the weights hard, looking like he’s packing on muscle quickly. With the extra three months that the COVID-19 postponement is giving Fury, he’s got plenty of time to bulk up to get his weight back to the 270s again.
Wilder will have to make sure he’s not a stationary target on October 9th because Fury will use his 40+ lb weight advantage against him just like last time. I mean, there won’t be ANY difference because it worked last time for Fury.
Tyson and his trainer Sugarhill Steward aren’t going to attempt to reinvent the wheel when they had so much success last time just by using bulk to rough up Deontay.
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Eddie Hearn’s theory on why the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight was postponed was poor ticket sales for the July 24th fight. If that’s the case, it sounds like Wilder wasn’t informed about it.
Fury has taken a lot of abuse from fans after his fight with Anthony Joshua fell through recently.
Fans wanted to see AJ and Fury battle for the undisputed heavyweight championship on August 14th. Still, the match fell apart due to the U.S arbitrator ruling in Wilder’s favor for his rematch.
Obviously, NONE of this would have happened if Fury had given Wilder his contractual rematch in 2020 or early 2021.
If Fury had done that, he’d have been able to take on Joshua without any issues. Of course, with Wilder’s one-punch power, maybe Fury might not have been eager to chance-it against him for the third time, particularly with Wilder coming up with a different game plan and new fighting style.
Fury’s success from the first two fights was partly due to Wilder being stationary, allowing him to walk him down while using tons of feints and head movement.
Now that Wilder has changed his fighting style, Fury’s 270+ lb football bulk might work against him rather than in his favor. When you’re fighting a big lug like Fury, you don’t want to stand in front of him and swing for the fences.
Of course, that would work for Wilder if his punch accuracy was better. But he’s not accurate enough to poleaxe Fury, who is as slippery as a greased pig and very hard to hit cleanly with any shots.
If Wilder were a body-puncher, he would have no problems stopping Fury with a body shot because he’s VERY easy to hit to the breadbasket.
Interestingly, Wilder’s trainer Malik Scott doesn’t seem to be working with him on throwing body shots as often.
In looking at their training video, perhaps one reason Scott isn’t focusing on developing Wilder’s body-punching is that he doesn’t seem capable of generating the same type of power when going downstairs as he does when throwing headshots.
Wilder could throw with devasting power to the body if he threw the shots in the same way he does when going to the head, but that would be risky.
If Wilder throws a right hand from the outside targeted to Fury’s midsection, he would need to keep his left guard high to avoid getting clipped.
A long right hand from Wilder to Fury’s breadbasket will do a lot of damage to the ‘Gypsy King’ if it lands with full force.
Charles Brun can’t imagine Fury being able to take more than a small handful of hard body shots from Wilder, being he’s rolling around on the canvas and hoisting the white flag of surrender up the flagpole.
Wilder will need to consider targeting Fury’s midsection on October 9th if he cannot land his right hands to the head with any degree of success.
If you look at past knockout artists like Julian Jackson and Tommy Hearns, they would throw body shots when they fought guys that used a lot of head movement. Hearns was an excellent body puncher during his career.
For Wilder, that might be the Davinci code to solve Fury’s elusive style of fighting. Rather than throwing nothing but headshots, Wilder needs to target Fury’s flabby midsection to try and get him out of there on October 9th.
The rematch between these two giant heavyweights could be quite different from their previous two contests if Deontay can stay on the move and not be there to be walked down by Fury.
Fury is going to use the same game plan that he utilized last time he fought Wilder. Why would Fury change anything? That would be foolish for him. Fury and his trainer Sugarhill will work on walking Wilder down, cutting off the ring, and then bludgeoning him with looping shots once he’s trapped.
Yeah, some of those shots will likely be the rabbit variety, unfortunately. Still, if there’s a quality referee on duty, perhaps he’ll do his job and penalize Fury after giving him warnings.