By Brian Webber: Promoter Eddie Hearn is on cloud nine, enjoying Tyson Fury’s downfall at the hands of ex-UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou last Saturday night in a fight that was supposed to have been an easy destruction of a novice with zero experience in the squared circle.
Hearn believes the 35-year-old Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) can no longer take shots like he once did due to the damage that Deontay Wilder inflicted on him.
Eddie isn’t the only one who thinks the ‘Bronze Bomber’ ruined Fury. Many fans note the change in Fury, as hasn’t looked the same, and his ambition & courage to take risks with his career has disappeared.
Fury is like someone who comes out of a war and appears to be all there physically, but they’re not the same. Something has changed, and they’re not functioning like they did.
What Deontay did to Fury changed him for the worse. Somehow, Fury is still winning with his grappling & roughhouse tactics, but that junk won’t be effective against Oleksandr Usyk or Anthony Joshua. That style is too simplistic to beat those types. If it didn’t work against the novice Ngannou, it surely would be ineffective against AJ & Usyk.
Those three fights with Wilder took something out of Fury, leaving the slow, fragile-chinned wreck that boxing fans saw struggle against Ngannou.
If not for the two judges who saved Fury’s hide, he would have suffered his first career loss, and his undisputed championship bout with IBF/WBA/WBO champion Usyk would be up in smoke.
Hearn wants Fury to fight Anthony Joshua if he wins his two fights with Usyk in February because he wants AJ to be the one to send him into retirement rather than him bowing out on his own after those two fights.
Fury was hurt twice by Ngannou and needed to be saved by the judges to avoid his first career loss. The performance was beyond terrible, and it doesn’t matter that he was given a ten round split decision; the fans saw for themselves what happened. Fury in their eyes, and that’s all that matters.
The official results and the handful of people who insist the judges got it right by giving it to Fury don’t matter because many fans saw him lose the fight.
Moreover, Fury looked like the loser regarding the damage done to his face, and he got the worst of the eye-catching exchanges in the fight. The only notable blow Fury landed was a cheap shot elbow to the head of Ngannou in the sixth round, which the referee surprisingly didn’t see.
It’s unclear how the ref could have missed it because it was blatant and should have resulted in a one-point deduction or disqualification.
“We saw Saturday night; we know the weaknesses. There [chin] ain’t what it used to be,” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV about Tyson Fury after his dreadful performance against Francis Ngannou in Saudi Arabia. “Make the fights, AJ against Fury. AJ beats Tyson Fury every day of the week. He knocks him spark out.”
Surprisingly, Dillian Whyte & Dereck Chisora didn’t expose Fury’s poor punch resistance, having disappeared when they fought him last year because those guys have decent power. Whyte looked terrible, and he never got a chance to land his powerful left hook because Fury took him out with an uppercut.
“You better go beat Usyk because if you do, you have to make the AJ fight. You cannot retire without fighting Anthony Joshua, but he’ll do the job for you because he’ll put you into retirement. I promise you that,” said Hearn.
Unfortunately for Hearn, it’s unlikely that Joshua will get a chance to give Fury his send-off into retirement because Usyk will deal him consecutive defeats in 2024. Fury’s pride won’t let him stick around after those defeats and be used as an old punching bag for Joshua to use to revitalize his career.
“If you get paid what you got paid, you do that press conference,” said Hearn, slagging Fury off for choosing to blow off the post-fight press conference last Saturday night rather than sticking around to have his feet put to the fire to suffer through the questions about his controversial win over Ngannou.
That was pathetic of Fury not to man up and stick around for the post-fight press conference so that he could be grilled by the media to hear what he had to say about his robbery win over Ngannou.
That was a weak move on Fury’s part and gave a little insight about him. He talks tough about how negative comments don’t bother him, yet he didn’t want to stick around and face the music after his ‘win’ over Ngannou.
“When AJ got concussed against Andy Ruiz [in their first fight in June 2019], the doctor said, ‘Don’t do the press conference,’ and he said, ‘I ain’t not doing the press conference. It’s embarrassing. I can’t have it everywhere. I’m winning, and I want to do all the media. Then I lose, and I just disappear out the back door,'” said Hearn.
