By Allan Fox: Tyson Fury will be looking to send challenger Deontay Wilder crashing down to defeat tonight in the third trilogy match at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
(Photo credit: Sean Michael Ham/TGB Promotions)
While many boxing fans are siding with WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) to defeat former champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) for a second time, many people believe ‘The Bronze Bomber’ can catch the big Brit with one of his tremendous right-hand shots to knock him out.
What Wilder has going for him tonight is the physical condition that the 33-year-old Fury is in. At yesterday’s weigh-in, Fury weighed in at a fat-looking 277 lbs and looked like he hadn’t trained as hard for the fight as he had for their rematch a year and a half ago.
Granted, Fury has been out of action for 20 months, thanks to the pandemic, but he hasn’t trained hard enough and watched his diet to keep his weight down.
Fury looks less muscular than he did last year, and he’s carrying around at least an extra 15 to 20 lbs of fat. If you take that fat off, Fury’s actual weight is somewhere in the 240s or 250s.
Deontay has a puncher’s chance
“Boy, I hope I’m wrong, but I see Tyson Fury winning late with a stoppage TKO,” said Stephen A. Smith to ESPN in predicting a victory for Fury over Wilder tonight.
“Deontay Wilder has a shot; he has the one-punch knockout power. He almost finished this man [Fury] in their first fight with one another, particularly in the 12th round when he caught him with a right and finished him with a left hook slash uppercut.
“Tyson Fury got up and started winning the round in the very round that he got knocked down in the same 12th round.
“Then he slaughtered him [Deontay] in the second fight, and then Deontay Wilder pointed to his costume in how it was heavy and took away from his legs.
“Then after that, he fired his trainer Mark Breland and all this other stuff. Here’s my thing. I love Deontay Wilder; I think he can take him with a one-punch knockout,” said Jackson.
Like always, the 6’7″ Deontay will have a puncher’s chance tonight against Fury, but it’s going to be near impossible for him to score a knockout. Fury’s chin is too good, and his defense almost impregnable.
If Wilder had better punch accuracy, he could likely easily knock Fury out because he would have too much power and speed for the big 6”9 Brit to survive for more than two or three rounds.
The reality is, Wilder can’t hit the side of the barn with his power shots unless Fury is exhausted and standing directly in front of him with his hands down.
While that is a possibility at some point in the fight, but it’s unlikely to happen though.
For Fury to be tired, it would have to be late in the fight, and Wilder is likely to have already been knocked out by that point.
Wilder does have a chance of knocking Fury out if he throws one of his massive right hands and catches him cleanly with it.
Depending on the referee, the fight could be waved off immediately if Fury is on the canvas, badly hurt like he was in the 12th round of his first fight with Deontay in 2018.
But if it’s a similar referee as the first fight, Fury could be out cold on the canvas, and the fight still won’t be stopped unless he can’t beat the 10-count from the ref.
Wilder CAN’T outbox Fury
“He cannot outbox Tyson Fury,” Jackson continued about Wilder only having one path to victory in the trilogy match tonight.
“Tyson Fury is the superior boxer by a mile, and the fact that he is so heavy, I think the only shot Deontay Wilder has is to either catch him and clip him early or Tyson Fury to get tired because he’s carrying all that weight around.
“Combine that with the fact that Tyson Fury was really looking forward to fighting Anthony Joshua, and he was compelled legally to fight Deontay Wilder and give him the trilogy.
“He [Fury] might not be interested, and that might get him caught, but I think that’s the only shot Deontay Wilder has, which is to catch him.
“So for me, when I look at Tyson Fury being the bigger fighter, the superior boxer, obviously capable of hurting Wilder himself, I just feel like if you got to bet your money, you got to go with Tyson Fury. I hope I’m wrong,” Stephen A said.
Wilder and his new trainer Malik Scott are likely well aware of what they’re up against in this third fight with Fury, and they’re not going to try and outbox him.
That would be a crazy idea, given that Fury has won virtually every round against Wilder in their two fights apart from the two in the first contest in 2018 in which he was knocked down.
If Wilder isn’t aware he needs a knockout to win this fight with Fury tonight, he deserves to lose the battle. To win at the elite level, fighters need to have a realistic game plan that has a chance for success.
If you take a non-puncher and give him a game plan to shoot for a knockout, it’s going to fail.
On the flipside, Malik Scott would be leading Wilder to failure if his plan for him to beat Fury tonight is to try and outbox him for 12 rounds.
Wilder can move better than Fury, especially now that Tyson has bulked up to a less than svelte-looking 277 lbs for tonight’s fight, but he doesn’t have the jab or boxing ability to win rounds.
Fury has the better jab, more extended reach, and he’s a far better boxer than Wilder will ever be.
It doesn’t matter that Wilder has far better power, hand speed, and mobility than Fury. Unfortunately, Deontay lacks the coordination and the boxing ability to defeat Fury, who will have him tied in knots with his feints.
Joshua messed mega-fight with Fury
“Fury is the champion. I’d like to see him fight Anthony Joshua, but every time Anthony Joshua has a big fight coming up, he loses before the fight happens.
“He was supposed to fight Wilder and gets knocked out by Andy Ruiz [in 2019]. Okay, then he comes, and he’s supposed to fight Tyson Fury after avenging a loss to Ruiz, and then he loses to [Oleksandr] Usyk, who outboxed him.
“So every time Anthony Joshua has a big fight coming up in front of 90,000, 100,000 at Wembley Stadium, this dude ends up losing before the super-fight happens.
“Yeah, I am mad about it because I was going to go to London for that fight [Joshua vs. Fury]. I was going to go. Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua, I was going to be there for that,” said Jackson.
The chances are high that Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) will wreck the possibility of salvaging a mega-fight with ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury in 2022 by losing his rematch with IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk next March.
So even if Fury destroys Wilder again tonight, it might not matter because Joshua could and probably will lose to Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) in their second fight.
Fury’s promoter Bob Arum has already come forward to try and save the mega-fight by offering Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn a step aside deal. Instead of Joshua fighting Usyk in early 2022, it’ll be Fury taking the fight with the Ukrainian for the undisputed championship.
Then Joshua would take on the winner of that fight, which presumably would be Fury. It’s a brilliant idea by the Harvard-educated Arum, but unfortunately, Joshua and Hearn have shown no interest in accepting the plan.