By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn was pouring on the praise by the bucketful about Deontay Wilder’s performance last Saturday night in fighting tooth & nail in a valiant effort to defeat WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in their third and possibly fight together at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
It was an exciting fight, reminding Charles Brun of the September 22nd, 1927 ‘Long count‘ match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney.
In that fight, Dempsey dropped Tunney in the seventh round, but instead of the referee counting him out, he focused on telling Jack to go to his corner. With all the time that the referee put into telling Dempsey to go to his corner, it enabled Tunney to beat the count
We saw the same thing occur with Fury seemingly being given a long count by referee Russell Mora, who wasted valuable time by stopping the count to tell Wilder to go to his corner.
The question is, will the WBC do the right thing by ordering Fury to give Wilder a rematch so that they can clear up the controversy of the long count from last Saturday?
Hearn says Deontay’s “credibility” has soared from his fight with Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) last weekend. While Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs) certainly did lose the battle by an 11th round knockout, he was the real hero of the event with the way that he kept coming back when he seemed to be on the verge of being knocked out.
With the way Wilder fought, he can still get fights against the top heavyweights. Before he does, he needs to fine-tune his game a little more to fix his stamina issues and get his weight down.
Once Wilder does that, who’s to say he can’t get a fourth fight with Fury? Unless Fury wants to freeze Wilder out because he refused to shake his hand, a fourth meeting between the two giant heavyweights will interest many boxing fans.
“Deontay Wilder’s credibility before Saturday was on the floor,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV. “Now, I think his credibility has shot through the roof.
“Although he looked like his tank was empty after two rounds, he stuck in there. He could not even stand up, and he kept going. So he deserves a huge amount of credit,” said Hearn of Wilder.
Did Fury receive a long count?
Unfortunately, Hearn didn’t touch on the subject of the controversy over the second knockdown in the fourth round, one that many boxing fans felt was a case of Fury being given a long count by the referee Russell Mora.
Andre Ward noted that the count that Mora gave Fury was slow. Ward noticed it and mentioned it during the Fury-Wilder broadcast, saying, “That was a slow count by the referee” because it did look like Fury failed to beat the 10-second count.
Mora paused the count so that he could tell Wilder to go to his corner, which arguably gave Fury more time to get up off the deck. Had Mora focused on providing the badly hurt Fury the count, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have gotten up in time.
It did look odd with the many seconds that went by after Fury hit the deck, and unfortunately, it tarnished his win.
MMA fighter Daniel Cormier had this to say on Twitter about the slow count given to Fury by referee Mora:
“I agree with Andre Ward. The count was crazy slow! He [Mora] isn’t supposed to stop counting to tell Deontay to go to his corner.”
Instead of Mora waving off the fight after 10 seconds had elapsed, he continued to count. If Mora hadn’t taken time out to tell Deontay to go to his corner, Fury likely wouldn’t have made it up in time.
Hopefully, the World Boxing Council reviews the fight and orders Fury to give Wilder a rematch because he deserves one. It’s too bad this fight was tainted, but it’s not surprising to Charles Brun.
If you saw the first Fury vs. Wilder fight in 2018, you probably weren’t shocked to see Tyson dodging another knockout with him being given a count.
This is how Fury looked in the first fight with Wilder while being given a count:
In looking at the photo, the obvious question that jumps out at you is why on Earth is the referee giving a count to Fury while he’s unconscious? Why wasn’t that fight stopped on the spot?
It’s a little unsettling to see that and wonder why the referee didn’t do the obvious thing and wave it off immediately and get the medical team in there to look Fury over.
“I think, fair play, you’ve got bottle,” said Hearn of Wilder. “I actually think Wilder is in a good position now.
“Deontay Wilder has lost to one man in the last three years. Deontay shouldn’t be disheartened that his only defeat has come from Tyson Fury. He’s a brilliant fighter,” said Hearn.