Evander Holyfield says he’s not sure what happened to Deontay Wilder last time he fought Fury because he’s never looked that bad.
Holyfield was surprised that former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) forgot so much in such a short period of time.
Wilder and Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will be meeting next month in a trilogy fight on July 24th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
If Deontay suffers a similar loss like last year, you must conclude that Fury is too good.
But if Fury openly fouling Wilder with punches to the back of the head in front of an ineffectual referee that’s just standing around taking up space in the ring, that could have an impact on the fight. We saw that last time.
Fury hitting Wilder in the back of the head, and the referee doing zero as if rabbit punching is now legal. Someone from Team Wilder dropped the ball by not demanding the referee do his job.
Wilder looked amateurish against Fury and was getting hit with everything that he threw. Holyfield doesn’t know what to think about Wilder’s excuses for his defeat.
If Fury can foul Wilder without the referee doing anything about it, Deontay may need to take matters into his own hands to get Tyson to follow the Marquees of Queensbury rules.
Something was wrong with Wilder
“People who take chances, they’re the only ones you can count on, people who take chances,” said Holyfield to Fighthype about Deontay Wilder. “He’s taking another chance.
“That outcome will let you know what he did in practice. It’ll be difficult, but there were things I heard, and I was like, ‘Oh, he might be right.’ I never saw Deontay fight a fight as bad as that last fight.
“Something was wrong. I never seen nobody go from one extreme to the other like that. I heard some things. I don’t know if they’re true or not, but you got to have the right people,” said Holyfield.
One obvious thing that messed Wilder up in the rematch was getting repeatedly hit to the back of the head early by Fury.
Wilder went down from a right hand to the back of his head in the third. When Wilder got back up, his legs were gone, and he never recovered. He looked partially concussed, and he was unable to do anything.
If you’re going to look at things to fix for the trilogy, Wilder needs to stay off the ropes because that’s where Fury was able to tag him at will with shots.
Fury’s rabbit punching must be controlled
Also, Team Wilder must talk to the referee ahead of time to alert him to Fury’s use of rabbit punches. The last time Fury got away with nonstop shots to the back of Wilder’s head without the referee doing anything about it.
If Wilder were hitting Fury with low blows as hard as he could over and over again, it would have changed the outcome of the fight.
Interestingly, the referee did zero to address Fury hitting Wilder with clear rabbit shots. You couldn’t miss them because they were constant. One rabbit shot in particular in the third round from Fury totally changed the fight.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what happened to Wilder last time. When you get away with fouling your opponent repeatedly with low blows and or rabbit punches, you’re going to change the complexion of the fight.
Evander has questions
“You got to correct your mistakes all the time,” Holyfield continued. “The next fight he comes in there, I ain’t going to be doing that.
“It’s obvious that Tyson Fury made some adjustments. I was saying, ‘No, this guy [Wilder] couldn’t get out of the way of no shots.’
“I don’t know even to count that fight or not because can a person be that bad? I never seen him [Wilder] that bad ever.
“That was the first time to see him so off, and he would get. I know in that fight, something wasn’t right.
“I don’t know what it was. Wow, can a person ever have an off day like that? You got to ask why it happened.
“Everybody has a bad day, but I don’t know if you can forget that much boxing that much to that level.
“I never seen it to that level. When he fights, we’ll know if it was there or a person had a mental lapse,” said Holyfield.
I don’t think it’s Fury’s gloves that did the damage. It was more of being mauled by Fury, held, wrestled, and, of course, being tagged by rabbit shots. You get hit in the back of the head repeatedly; you’re going to have problems.
