Keith Thurman wants to see Tyson Fury go down against Deontay Wilder

Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman says he wants to see Tyson Fury go down this Saturday, October 9th, when he faces Deontay Wilder in their trilogy match at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Thurman confesses that he thinks it’s exciting watching Fury get dropped by Wilder, and he’d like to see a repeat of their first fight in 2018 in which Deontay dropped him twice.

Keith believes that Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) was exhausted last time he fought Fury in 2020, which is why he didn’t throw many punches in the contest. In the fourth round, Thurman’s wife pointed out that Wilder looked tired, and he agreed with her.

Whatever Wilder did getting to the ring wore him out, and he wasn’t the same fighter he usually is in his fights. Wilder blamed his weariness on his heavy 50-lb ring-walk costume that he had on over 10 minutes before the battle.

For anyone that has picked up a 45-lb plate in the weight room, it’s heavy and not something you want to carry around for 10 to 15 minutes immediately before an athletic event.

Thurman wants to see Fury to down

“There are some of us who remember what Tyson Fury looked like when he went down, and I’m sorry to say, I’d love to see it again,” said Keith Thurman to Fighthub TV on Fury getting knocked cold in the 12th round by Wilder in 2018.

“He’s [Fury] the bigger man, and how many times in his career did he knock down the bigger man?” continued Thurman. “It was so entertaining that Tyson got up. Don’t worry, Tyson. I want you to go down because I believe you can get up.

“It’s entertaining to watch you go down and come up, and then you fought to a draw. There’s nothing better than that. At any time, we can see the man [Fury] go down if Wilder is able to connect on the chin.

“Fury is obviously by now very comfortable getting in the ring with Deontay Wilder, but it’s that one slip up. Wilder is able to give back a little movement. He’s been working on some things. If he can get in there a little more slicker with strategy and energy. Get a few new angles.

“We’re already great athletes. So when you add something to your repertoire. It just makes you that much better. If we leave it up to the judges, I say it’s going to be hard for Wilder to shut down all that Fury has been doing.

“If he [Wilder] is going to shut it down, he’s going to shut it down with a big punch, and I don’t think we’re going to need to go to the judges for that. If we got to go to the judges, we’ve got to lean towards Fury.

“What about Fury stopping him? I know he’s a big man and capable of big things, but stylistically, I’m going to say, 12 rounds Fury. If it goes short, I’m leaning towards Wilder,” said Thurman.

If Thurman’s theory on why Wilder wasn’t his usual self last time, Fury could be in for a lot of problems on Saturday.

We could see Fury hit the deck repeatedly like a basketball, but he might not get back up after afterwhile unless a similar referee is working as the first Wilder-Fury fight.

In that case, Fury will have a lot of time to get up, and his corner might need to save him if he gets dropped too many times by Wilder.

Wilder looked fatigued early last time

“I truthfully don’t think it’s going to go 12, but I think it’ll be a great fight if it does go 12. I think Wilder was fatigued,” said Thurman in giving his explanation for Deontay’s poor performance last year against Fury.

“If my wife could see a heavyweight is tired in the fourth round, then you’re tired in the fourth round. There was no way Wilder was getting out of that fight, period, without a one-punch here, there. It sounds like the decisions they made backstage [negatively impacted Wilder’s performance].

“Sometimes we can fill that muscle fatigue, and until we get to a certain amount of rounds later, we’re not going to get that second wind.

“You’re on E for a certain amount of time before you feel like you can move your arms again. You don’t want to be in that situation, and I believe that Wilder must have felt something. Otherwise, why even do a third fight?

“I know he knows there’s so much more to give in the fight,” said Thurman about Wilder. “That wasn’t the true second fight [with Fury] even if he’s going to get beat, not like that.

“He’s going to be able to throw way more hands, he’s going to be able to do a lot, and it should have gone more rounds. A whole lot of different things.

“I do believe in a reason for the third fight. I wasn’t a big fan of the second fight due to the overall outcome of it. It was slightly entertaining but one-sided because one athlete wasn’t able to be at his best,”  said Thurman on the Fury vs. Wilder fight.

Wilder and his team had a poorly thought out idea to wear a heavy ring-walk uniform before the fight. If Wilder repeats that mistake on Saturday, he could lose a second.

At some point, Wilder will learn his lesson and give up on his silly ring-walk uniforms, and he needs to leave the uniforms to his team members.

Deontay not accustomed to being a smaller man

“They can fight 15 times in a row, and you’re going to watch it,” Thurman said of Wilder and Fury. “They’re dangerous. It comes down to strength and conditioning, and his strength and conditioning faded so early.

“If Wilder is able to take you into those deep rounds and you still got to dodge those bombs, that’s the problem.  That’s what happened to [Luis] Ortiz.

“The moment he slowed down, and he got tired, Wilder was able to sneak and uppercut if my memory is right. It was a right uppercut, which is one of his best punches.

“The real challenge here is that he’s fighting a boxer [Fury] that is bigger than him and can keep him on the outside and actually play the boxer vs. puncher role. Everybody else that was boxing him they’re still stepping into the danger zone.

“He can hit them before they hit him, and they have to accept that. He’s always going to be able to hit them because heavyweights don’t just jump in and jump out. He’s always going to be able to get his hands on them.

“The problem with this Fury fight is that Fury makes him reach and has got him missing. So let’s see what tactics [Wilder] did to make better contact when stepping in against Tyson Fury.

“It’s the reach factor, and Wilder isn’t used to having the disadvantage. He’s used to throughout his whole career; he’s used to being the biggest guy in the ring.

“It’s not really his fault that he didn’t use the tactics to get inside because people are coming to him, or he was on the outside, and they couldn’t even reach him.

“Now when he’s on the outside, he can actually get hit by something [by Fury] because this guy has longer arms. So, it’s something new,” Thurman said.

Wilder will need to do something to get within Fury’s reach because the big 6’9″ Brit will stay on the outside and use his jab to control the fight if he can’t get to him.

Deontay could stop Fury if he lands that right

“If he lands that right hand, what happens isn’t going to be new,” said Thurman of Wilder. “We’re all going to expect him to get dropped. Tyson Fury is one of the most skillful heavyweights of this era.

“I haven’t really seen too many triple-jab heavyweights since the days of Ali, and Ali wasn’t as big as Tyson Fury. So for him to be the size that he is and to be as mobile and agile and enjoy boxing the way that he does, moving around. It’s just very entertaining, and I’ve been a big of Deontay for a long time, and I’ve seen him accomplish so much.

“Even with a victory [for Wilder], it would be 1-1 and then the draw.  So I can see why his hunger is for this, and so I’d like to see my boy get his redemption and get that strick back.

“Then he’d not feel bested by this man. Who knows if they’ll ever go at it again. We don’t see too many fights go past a trilogy.

“We just got to see what kind of action this fight brings because I just want more than last time. It’s not Tyson Fury’s fault what happened, but that’s what Deontay Wilder is here to do more than last time.

“You want this rematch, but you’ve got to show more. You got to show us more as fans, yourself more, and the whole world.  So, let’s see if he [Wilder] can defeat the giant,” said Thurman on Deontay’s trilogy match with Fury.

The longer the fight goes, the better the chance that Wilder will connect with one of his big right hands and poleaxe Fury. While Fury is a massive heavyweight, his chin is like that of a smaller fighter.

He can’t take a big shot without going down. You can’t count the last fight because Wilder looked exhausted from the outset.