By Charles Brun: An outbreak of COVID 19 in Tyson Fury’s camp has his July 24th fight against Deontay Wilder in jeopardy. The fight is still not officially postponed as of right now, but we’ll hear something soon. ESPN is reporting the news of the Covid 19 outbreak from Team Fury.
If the fight is postponed, it would be pushed to September, which would help Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) because he’s still looking flabby around the midsection, and he’s not packed on the muscle bulk that he had last time he fought Deontay.
“We continue to monitor the health status of Tyson and his team, and the status of the event has not changed to date,” a statement from Top Rank said Thursday.
This is a fight that Fury, 32, didn’t want, and you got to be highly skeptical about anything that has to do with the potentially delayed match.
Fury weighed 273 lbs last time he fought Wilder, and he used that bulk to bully him around the ring. The Gypsy King has looked atrophied lately, and he clearly has lost the muscle he had a year ago.
He’s replaced the muscle with fat. It plays into Fury’s hands if they delay the trilogy until September because he’s got two extra months to add muscle.
We really don’t know whether this Covid 19 outbreak is legit or a signal that all is not well in Fury’s camp. If he’s getting pounded by his sparring partners Efe Ajagba and Jared Anderson in sparring, it could be a useful explanation why the Wilder fight could be on the verge of being postponed until September.
Fury needs that 270+ lb bulk for the last Wilder fight to increase his chances of winning the trilogy match.
In the first fight with Wilder, we saw that Fury, at 256 lbs, was too weak and slow to do anything against him other than slap. In the second fight, Fury all of a sudden looked like an NFL lineman, having packed on a lot of muscle size. The size helped Fury bully the 231-lb Wilder around the ring.
Wilder looks ready to rock right now, and that obviously isn’t good for Fury because he’s him to be at less than 100% like last time to increase his chances of getting the ‘W’ on the night.
Wilder was dealing with a torn right bicep when they fought last year in February, which took his main weapon. Fury was then able to club the one-armed Wilder with rabbit punches to take his legs away.
The fight looked like an MMA anything goes type of match in which one guy has thrown the rulebook out the window while the injured other fighter is doing his best in dealing with his injured limb.