“None Of The Shots Wilder Hit Him With Were Clean, You’ve Seen Him Down Against Cunningham”
To plenty of fans, the fact that Tyson Fury managed to get back up in that quite amazing 12th round in his first fight with the lethal-punching Deontay Wilder ended all doubts about Fury’s chin. Twice the extremely dangerous and heavy-handed Wilder belted Fury in the head, sending him down and on his back. It looked for all the world that “The Gypsy King” was done for the night. Instead, with referee Jack Reiss not panicking the way some other referee might have done (mentioning no names), Fury was allowed to get back up and fight on.
But despite Fury’s great show of heroics, Eddie Hearn still feels his guy Anthony Joshua will KO Fury when the two fight in their massive showdown (hopefully to take place in May or June). Speaking on the Toe 2 Toe Podcast, Hearn said that the two shots Wilder hit Fury with were not “particularly clean.” Hearn also brought up the fact that the significantly smaller (than Fury) Steve Cuningham scored a heavy knockdown over Fury back in 2013.
“I believe he knocks Tyson Fury out,” Hearn said of Joshua. “You know, I know that Fury got up from a Wilder shot, the two-shot combination, which he rode very well. None of those shots hit him particularly clean. They were still heavy shots. But you know, you’ve seen him down against Cunningham. You’ve seen him hurt before and AJ is a different kind of beast.”
Okay, Fury was sent south by Cunningham, when the still-learning Brit was caught square on, this in a fight that saw Fury fight in a reckless fashion. Since then, Fury has improved immensly, as he has shown time and again. But for Hearn to denigrate what Fury did in that 12th round against Wilder in December of 2018 is, in my opinion, a display of poor form. The two shots might not have been perfectly clean but they were darn close. Would Joshua have either been able to take them or get back up from them?
Joshua can punch of course. No-one will ever deny that. But does AJ punch harder than Wilder? Does any active heavyweight punch harder than Wilder? And of course, Fury, by his own admission, was no way at his best in that first fight with Wilder, comign back as he had from depression, dropping a ton of weight prior to his two tune-up fights. We saw a fully fit Fury against Wilder in the rematch.
Also, will Joshua be able to catch Fury with one flush (or close to flush) shot on the chin, let alone two? Fury has shown he can be a defensive boxer as well as a destroyer. Has Joshua got enough in his arsenal to be able to beat Fury? In heavyweight boxing anything can happen, as we know. But for my money, if Joshua does nail Fury, Fury will either take the shot or he’ll get back up from it if he is sent off his feet.
That 12th round against Wilder convinced me: Fury’s chin is for real. As are his recuperative powers. Even when he’s not at full strength.