By Trevor McIntyre: Trainer Naaim Richardson is predicting that WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder will lose every round against Tyson Fury this Saturday night until he nails him with a big shot.
Richardson says the winner of the Wilder-Fury fight will be considered the best heavyweight on the planet. If it’s Wilder, he would be able to backup that claim by pointing out that he has wins over Fury and Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz. If it’s Fury who wins on Saturday, he can brag that he beat the previously unbeaten Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) and defeated former IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
There’s question that Fury is looking as healthy now than he has since the night he beat Wladimir in 2015. Fury no longer has fat around his midsection, and his overall general health look 100% improved from the way hes looked in the last three years. For the first time since his huge upset win over Klitschko three years ago, Fury looks like an athlete.
“I just say Fury. He looked phenomenal, man,” Richardson said to Fighthype about Fury. “Even his skin tone looked bright. I can see him winning every round up until Deontay Wilder cracks him.”
Fury is going to need to rough Wilder up to win. If look back at what Fury did to Klitschko, he was clubbing him with shots in close and tiring him out. Fury landed a lot of rabbit punches to the back of Wladimir’s head that went unpunished. By the time referee Tony Weeks finally took charge of the fight in the 11th round to deduct one point from Fury for one of many blatant rabbit punches he’d thrown, it was already too late. Weeks chose not to penalize Fury for the rabbit punches he continued to throw in the fight.
If Fury can fight like that against Wilder on Saturday, he’ll have a good chance of knocking him out, especially if the referee allows those types of punches. The referees still aren’t taking rabbit punching as serious as they do low blows for some reason. It’s far more dangerous for a fighter to get hit to the back of the head, but the referees don’t take those kinds of punches as seriously as they do low blows. Perhaps they’ve never been hit to the back of the head before and don’t know what it’s like.
“Whoever wins this fight is the biggest, baddest big man in boxing right now,” Richardson said of the Wilder vs. Fury fight. “The big man who wins this fight is the big man to see.”
IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn probably won’t agree with Richardson’s comments about the winner of the Wilder vs. Fury fight being the #1 heavyweight in boxing, but they won’t be able to do anything about it. The boxing public is likely going to agree with Richardson’s opinion about the winner of the Wilder-Fury fight being the best. What will keep fans from saying that Joshua is the top heavyweight in the division is the opposition he’s been facing, and the way he’s been looking in winning. Joshua has struggled to win his last four fights against Alexander Povetkin, Joseph Parker, Carlos Takam and Wladimir Klitschko.
Although Joshua won all four of those fights, he didn’t look invincible or particularly impressive in any way. Joshua looked muscle bound in all four of the fights, and his conditioning was lacking in a big way. Joshua looked badly fatigued against Wladimir and Takam. We didn’t get a chance to see observe whether Joshua’s stamina would give out on him against Joseph Parker, due to the referee keeping the New Zealand fighter from being able to work on the inside. The referee was pulling Parker away from Joshua whenever he tried to work in close. It looked to some boxing fans like the referee was helping Joshua the entire fight.
“Now I’m not taking nothing away from Big Baby, I’m not taking nothing away from Anthony Joshua, but dammit, ya’ll let this fight take place and each of these guys have the credentials,” Richardson said about the Wilder vs Fury fight picking out the #1 heavyweight in boxing. “Fury can say, ‘I beat Wilder and I beat Klitschko.’ Wilder can say ‘I beat Fury and I beat King Kong.’ Whoever wins this fight is what Mike Tyson used to say, [the] ’baddest man on the planet.'”
It’s hard not to agree with what Richardson says about the winner of the Wilder vs. Fury being the top dog in the heavyweight division. If Fury can get back to the fighter he was on the night against Klitschko, Wilder is going to have boatload of problems on Saturday night in dealing with what he brings to the table. Fury is a real scrapper. He can make a right ugly if his opponent isn’t ready go go after him. The fights that Fury has had the most problems with during his career was Big John McDermott and Steve Cunningham. Those two fighters attacked Fury early and often with hard right hand shots, and they were able to land a lot of hard shots that put Fury on the defensive. Even though Fury beat McDermott and Cunningham, he didn’t look good in either of those fights. He was bothered by their straight punches that went down the middle. Wladimir and Dereck Chisora both made the mistake of throwing wide hooks against Fury, which he was to block with his arms. Fury is good at picking off hooks, but not so good at stopping shots thrown down the middle. Wilder does a bit of both. He likes to throw windmill shots, as well as straight right hands. If Wilder staggers Fury with a straight right, he could foil his own chances of knocking him out if he starts windmilling on him. It’s important for Wilder to stay composed and not get over anxious if he hurts Fury on Saturday.
Wilder is in his prime right now, and he’s been fighting two times a year for the last three years when Fury was out of the ring. If Fury is counting on Wilder gassing out the way Wladimir did, he could be disappointed. Wilder doesn’t gas out like Wladimir. When Wilder does get a little tired like he did against Luis Ortiz, he recovers quickly and looks like new in the next round. Wilder isn’t someone that needs three to four rounds to recover after expending energy the way Joshua does.
Fury would do well to try and knock Wilder out. The fight is in the United States, and the judges are likely going to give more weight to Wilder’s big power shots than to Fury’s jabs, slapping shots and the clubbing punches he throws in close. It makes it hard for the judges to give rounds to the weaker fighter when they’re seeing a powerful puncher like Wilder landing scorching shots. Fury shouldn’t even attempt to win a decision. It’s too hard to go 12 rounds with a fighter with Wider’s type of punching power. Fury has got to make it ugly, and try and get in close to land one of his clubbing punches. That’s about the best thing Fury can do to try and win the fight. As we saw in Fury’s fight against former cruiserweight Sefer Seferi, he can throw a mean uppercut from time to time. If Wilder is ducking low, Fury might be able to catch him with one of his big uppercuts to knock him out. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. The main thing for Fury to be conscious of is the need for a knockout, and the earlier the better. Fury needs to turn the fight into a war right off the bat, and look to brain Wilder with a big shot in the first two rounds to knock him out.
