In a battle of novices, Tommy Fury proved to be the better man, winning a boring eight round split decision over the popular Jake Paul in their grudge match on Sunday night in Diriyah Arena, Diriyah, in Saudi Arabia.
Jake (6-1, 4 KOs) fell behind early but then rallied in the championship rounds to drop Tommy (9-0, 4 KOs) in the eighth round.
The score was: 76-73, 76-73 for Tommy, and 75-74 for Jake Paul. To say the fight failed to live up to the hype is an understatement. It was not a great fight to watch, and hopefully, there’s no rematch. In hindsight, Jake made the mistake of fighting a finesse fighter like Tommy Fury.
Jake should have known that Tommy is a pure spoiler with no power, who would fight a dull fight and not give him opportunities to get his shots off by staying on the outside and clinching a lot.
The holding by Tommy played a major role in his victory because he was clinging to Jake as if he were physically a part of his body, like a third arm. He wouldn’t let go, and when there was separation, Tommy would jab and then fall in and grab with a clinch.
n other words, it was the kind of stuff that we see from his brother Tyson Fury, who uses the punch & grab as his main style of fighting since hooking up with American coach SugarHill Steward.
It was almost impossible to score the rounds because while Tommy seemingly was going the better boxing, Jake was landing the harder, more eye-catching shots.
If the judges had scored the fight by which the fighter landed the cleaner, harder shots, Jake deserved the win, but obviously not how the two judges that scored it for Tommy were scoring the fight. It’s fair to say that Jake would have won if he had a different set of judges.
The 23-year-old Tommy (9-0, 4 KOs), the brother of Tyson Fury, had been chomping at the bit to fight Jake Paul for ages and finally got the opportunity, and he barely edged it by a split decision.
The referee Hector Afu inserted himself into the equation, taking points away from both fighters and seemingly not doing enough to stop Tommy Fury from his out-of-control clinching, which was really the story of the fight.
Tommy gamed the system with his nonstop clinching, neutralizing Jake’s ability to get his offense in gear due to the frequent holding. That’s likely a tactic that Tommy’s brother Tyson Fury could have advised him to use because that’s a big part of his fighting style.
The only difference is Tommy didn’t lean the way Tyson does, and the reason for that is he didn’t have a huge weight advantage to tire out Jake.
In the second half of the fight, Tommy landed many jabs before falling in for his clinching of Jake.
Jake’s point deduction for throwing to the back of the head of Tommy was costly in the fifth round and seemed to be a quick deduction by the referee.
In the sixth, the referee finally stepped in and took a point away from Tommy Fury for his excessive holding, but he failed to police the holding from him for the remainder of the fight.
