An interesting tweet from British trainer Peter Fury dropped last night regarding his unbeaten son Hughie – cousin of Tyson – potentially fighting WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in America.
September 26th is the penciled in date for the Alabama man’s return, with Fury tweeting;
“Call just came in from USA asking @hughiefury to fight Wilder in 4 weeks. Getting noticed @Tyson_Fury.”
British middleweight champion Nick Blackwell (18-3-1, 8ko) produced the goods in Derby last night to retain his title with an emphatic stoppage victory over the previously undefeated Damon Jones (now 13-1, 3ko), live on Channel 5.
The ever improving Blackwell is still only 24 years of age and his 3 defeats have all come at the hands of solid European and world level fighters in Martin Murray (2011), Billy Joe Saunders (2012) and former EBU champion Max Bursak (2013) in fights he arguably took too soon.
It would appear that the future is looking bright for British heavyweight prospect Hughie Fury (15-0, 8ko) – cousin of Tyson, if a series of late night tweets from his father and trainer Peter are anything to go by.
The young 20 year old heavyweight took a significant step up in class last time out, turning in a confident and mature performance against the more experienced Ukrainian Andriy Rudenko (24-2, 16ko) on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin/Martin Murray fight in February.
Clearly looking for credible tests for his son, which is always a refreshing thing to hear regarding a young fighter, Peter tweeted the following with regards to the next outing;
David Price beat Irineu Beato Costa Junior via a sixth round TKO. Like Price, he had 2 losses on his record and was a decent fighter, but at the end of the day this is part of the rebuilding for Price and was a fight he was supposed to win. In 2012, Price was in a great place. He had just stopped domestic heavyweights Audley Harrison and Matt Skelton in a combined 3 rounds to defend his British and Commonwealth straps and was looking for an entry into the top of the world scene. Two back to back KO losses to Tony Thompson and he was back at the bottom and seemed to have nowhere to go. He decided to go through the slow process of rebuilding his reputation and in 2014 banked away three decent wins to start this process.
By Peter Fury (courtesy of Hennessy Sports): Family. It’s the most important thing to me, it’s life’s beating heart, and it means more than all the world titles a fighter can win.
Today the Fury family grows stronger as my brother, John, is released from prison following a four-and-a-half year sentence. It’s a happy day, a cause for celebration, and I’m just glad we get to have him home. It gives us the chance to put all of this misery behind us. Now we can concentrate on the boxing.
We’re taking this afternoon off and we’ll go out for a meal to celebrate his release. Then we’ll be back in the gym this evening and there’ll be sparring. John will be right in the mix and it will be like he never went away.
So far in the 2 year professional career of Hugie Fury (14-0-0 8KO) he has largely been overlooked in favour of the other top British heavyweights, however that could change this month when Fury takes on Andriy Rudenko (24-1-0 16KO).
Whilst I wouldn’t rate Rudenko as a top 25 heavyweight myself, he is a very good test for the young fighter Fury. Actually in most eyes he will be the favourite going into this fight which would mean a big boost in Hughies stock should he come out victorious.
Tyson talks candidly (does he know any other way?) about Wladimir Klitschko not wanting to spar him, Deontay Wilder being more deserving of a world title shot than himself, and says he is up for a fight with David Haye despite a fight between the pair already falling through twice before.
Could the Fury cousins be poised to succeed the Brothers Klitschko as the dominant force in world heavyweight boxing, for the remainder of this decade?
Twenty five year old Tyson Fury is unbeaten in 21 and has already won a brace of world title eliminators yet many knowledgeable minds are selecting his 19 year old relative Hughie as his biggest threat to heavyweight hegemony.
A World Youth gold medallist in 2012, the lad they call ‘Fists of Fury’ racked up a dozen wins (seven stoppages) in his first 33 weeks as a paid prizefighter.
But unlike his gregarious cousin, young Hughie has been content to serve his apprenticeship off TV, deep into undercards and often on foreign climes. Already he has graced professional rings in six separate countries.