Tyson’s Return to the Ring: Are the Klitschkos in the immediate Future?
By Damien Norman
“Tyson Fury”; the type of name you would probably come up with if you were to design your own heavyweight champion of the world. You would probably also make him about 6’9 in height, two good fists and the gift of the gab with his weight around the 200 pound mark… but of defined muscle.
Unfortunately the “Tyson Fury” that has emerged on the scene is as far away from that envisagement as possible. The similarities are that yes, this Fury does stand at 6’9… yes, this Fury certainly does have the gift of the gab and finally yes, he is around the 200 pound mark… but to spot any form of definition you would probably need to be tripping!
At the end of 2008 UK Heavyweight Boxer Tyson Fury arrived on the Boxing scene making more claims than a psychic. He quickly notched up a string of wins against his journeymen opponents but failed to impress on any level. He wasn’t without an excuse either; nobody would fight him, he couldn’t get sparring because nobody was prepared to spar with him to name a couple of those but it wasn’t until June 2010 that the masses of critics got what they anticipated.
Fury took on John McDermott for the then vacant English Heavyweight Title. McDermott was known for running Mike Tyson conqueror Danny Williams close twice on two occasions and being unlucky not to get the decision in both contests.
Although McDermott was not the most talented Boxer everybody felt that he would simply have too much for the novice Fury in way of experience and ring nous and it was to prove true. Most are probably aware of what happened that night as it was one of the most controversial Boxing moments for many years but John McDermott put on a professional, disciplined display to completely outbox and embarrass Fury making him look utterly terrible. Fury appeared to have no jab, no lateral movement and probably the most surprising thing of all given his height absolutely no power.
John McDermott walked through everything Fury threw and not at any stage looked at all worried about Fury, and going in to the final round of the fight was set to win the fight by at least 4 clear rounds. To everybody’s amazement referee Terry O’ Connor scored the contest 98-92 in Fury’s favor!
The crowd, commentators and even Fury himself appeared to be stunned by the crazy decision. To make matters worse McDermott’s promoter Frank Maloney even suffered a heart attack that evening. The BBBOC immediately ordered a rematch which, in the light of things was not really a fair decision. Fury clearly learnt from this and went in to the rematch looking a slightly more accomplished Boxer. He was still hopelessly out of shape but Boxed to his strengths and ran away with a 9th round TKO.
Since then Fury has fought twice, both times in 2010 against American opponents who were very limited. The first of these was against one “Rich Power” who actually went in to the contest with an unbeaten record (although with no notable opponents on his record) and the second and final fight against journeyman Zack Page. Both fights should have been much easier than they were but Fury typically made hard work of it showing the same weaknesses he had displayed in his previous fights with little improvements.
As a fellow Brit I have to admit that when Fury made his Professional debut I was anticipating big things from him. Standing at that height with such a long reach I really couldn’t see a possibility that he could fail. We see lots of top class Heavyweight Boxers without that sort of height or reach but have it within their armory to adopt a formidable game plan in order to make up for the lack of height or to counteract an opponent who possesses those physical attributes.
Tyson Fury has all of this over most opponents yet bizarrely never seems to make use of it. Being an up and coming talent with lots of media and press coverage there are a lot of do’s and don’ts and we see many sports stars crack under such pressures; with a name like “Tyson Fury” you really expect big things from him but so far the only big thing has been his mouth and height. I like a fighter who is full of confidence and backs up his claims but unfortunately if you are going to disrespect opponents by making rude remarks about them and by calling them out you really have to back it up by stepping in the ring with them or opponents of similar quality. Fury’s record to date, on the exception of John McDermott is all journeymen and until he steps it up against somebody of at least European level he will continue to have a barrage of critics.
It was announced last week that Fury would be taking on the once dominant ‘White Buffalo’ Francois Botha however shortly after the BBBOC announced a statement saying that the fight would not be allowed to go ahead/should not have been announced fearing Botha would be badly hurt given his age and condition in his last fight (a less than impressive display against Evander Holyfield). There have been two opponents who have offered to step in to replace Botha, Alex Leapai and Kevin Johnson.
Both would be a stiff test for Fury and probably too much, which is why neither of those opponents are likely to get the call from Fury’s promoter Mick Hennessey. Johnson has made the most noise out of the two and sounds eager to make the fight happen although, even if Fury was brave enough to take him on would likely demand more money than they would be prepared to offer. Many will know Kevin “Kingpin” Johnson from his World Title shot against Vitali Klitschko.
Although he received an awful lot of negative press for his performance in that fight it was the American’s only loss in 24 contests. It is noted that Johnson doesn’t possess a mass amount of power as a Heavyweight but moves well and has a catalogue of shots and you can only imagine Fury sidestepping an opponent of that caliber.
Time will tell if Fury really can live up to the hype but at this stage I amongst others remain very skeptical. Regardless of a current lack of opponent his next outing is scheduled to be in February; another journeyman or finally a credible opponent?