Tyson Fury sees this trilogy match with former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder as the last chance for ‘The Bronze Bomber’ and he expects him to be ready to give it all he’s got.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) says he’s been studying his last fight with Wilder to note how he attempted to deal with the different things that he was doing against him.
Tyson wants to make sure that Wilder won’t have any success when they meet up for the third and possibly the last time later this year. Fury’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank still hasn’t picked a date or country for the Wilder fight. It looks like it’ll take place in December close to Christmas.
Wilder is probably making a mistake in fighting Fury again, but the money is obviously too good for him to walk away from this fight.
Fury sounds overconfident
“I’ve watched the highlights quite a lot because I like to examine the work that I’ve done in some fights and in that fight I wanted to see Wilder in how he was coping with different things and different scenarios,” said Fury to ESPN in talking about watching his win over Deontay from last February.
“I’ve broken it down over the last three months. It was every single part of it, I was just too good for him. In every department, whether it was long-range, inside, hooking, punching, hitting the body, anything. I just out-matched him.
“That’s the difference between a match-fit Tyson Fury that kept busy and a Tyson Fury that had three years out of the ring,” said Fury.
Wilder let Fury get close to him last time they fought and use his size. What Wilder should have done is hit Fury with right hands, and then back away quickly to keep him from getting close.
Teddy Atlas recommends that Wilder target Fury’s body occasionally. Former top heavyweight Gerry Cooney also says Wilder should go after Fury’s soft midsection and look to hurt him. We’ve already seen that Wilder couldn’t land to Fury’s head with any degree of accuracy in his first two fights with Fury.
Wladimir Klitschko also had problems hitting Fury to the head because he’s got such good upper body movement. However the body is already there for Fury, and he can be hit.
Atlas wants Wilder to get his shots off before Fury gets close
“Stop looking at the other guy’s advantages. He’s [Fury] the bigger guy,” said Atlas on THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas. “Look at yours and use them, and put yourself in a position to use them. What am I talking about? Length. He’s [Fury] bigger and you’re longer.
“Get your punches off at the right distance before he invades your space, before he catches the fort, before that. Don’t wait until he’s coming over the wall. What the frig are you going to do then? Then you’re watching one of those cowboy and Indian movies. It’s too late.
“It’s too late. Get your punches off at the right distance, before he invades that space as I just said. Be the boss. Be a smart boss. I can’t say you can’t go back, but don’t get pushed back. Go back because you want to go back because it’s the plan,” said Atlas in giving Wilder some sound advice in how to beat Fury.
Wilder made so many mistakes in his rematch with Fury, and it might be too much. It would be nice if Wilder hired Atlas as his trainer because he at least would have him work on not letting Fury rush him without nailing him.
Also, Wilder completely ignored Fury’s body in both of his fights with him, and that made it easy for him to dodge his wild headshots. Fury always knew that Wilder would target his head, which gave him an advantage.
Deontay needs to take the coal out of the engine room – Atlas
“There’s a reason to go back, there’s an advantage behind it because you chose to go back,” said Atlas. “Don’t go back because he made you go back. Go back a little sooner ahead of him where you can catch him coming in because you wanted to go back, not him.
“Do what you want him to do, not what he tells you to do, not what he forces you to do. Hit him in the body every once in a while. He made you feel he was an immovable object, a train you couldn’t stop. Derail that train. Knock it off the tracks a little.
“Take coal out of the engine room. Bang him in the body a little bit. Use that jab. Sometimes when the punches come, here’s something you can learn new. Move your fricken head, hows that?
“How’s that for an idea? Move your head and let the punch go by and counter right there. Step to the side until you get off that track instead of being forced back on that track. You can learn that. You can do that. Maybe you never thought you had to. Guess what? You have to,” said Atlas.
Wilder has never been a body puncher during his career, and it’s hard to imagine him starting now just because Atlas is telling him to go downstairs. But Wilder might as well target the body. After two fights with Fury, it’s obvious that Wilder can’t land his right hands to the head with a high enough degree of accuracy for him to beat him.
“So I’m going into the third fight even more focused than I will for this [second] fight because I know this is Wilder’s last chance at the big time, especially with winning his belt back,” said Fury.
“He’ll come in with much more determination and much more focus if that’s even possible that Deontay Wilder will come in more prepared and more ready for this fight.
“I have to take this fight more serious than I did the first two because a lot of fighters have had a lot of trilogies with people and just because they beat them comfortable the second time, they overlooked them the third and time and ended up getting knocked out and losing and I don’t want to be one of those statistics in time to come,” said Fury.
