Tyson Fury has big dreams of smashing Deontay Wilder on October 9th, then battering Dillian Whyte in December, and then finally taking on Anthony Joshua twice in 2022.
WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) has been talking lately like he’s disinterested in the business he needs to take care of with former WBC champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) next month.
Fury’s murderer’s row:
- Deontay Wilder – October 9th
- Dillian Whyte – December
- Anthony Joshua – March 2022
- Anthony Joshua – September 2022
If Fury does realize his dream of getting those fights in that order, there’s not going to be much left of him. By the time Fury finishes running the gauntlet against those dangerous punchers, he may not have much left.
With Fury, though, he has a way of disappearing for long periods after a big win, as he likes to sit back savor the victory. He’s not the type of person that goes back to work like normal people, and that’s going to hurt him.
If Fury disappears for a year after he faces Wilder on October 9th, he’s going to be easy pickings for Whyte or Joshua when he eventually does come back.
It’s easy to understand why the 32-year-old Fury is so impatient about getting Wilder out of the way because the real money and glory will come for him taking on fellow Brits Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) and Anthony Joshua in fights that would fill stadiums in the UK.
Unfortunately for Fury, he’s got the big-punching 6’7″ Deontay standing in his path that is an obstacle for him to get to the lucrative fights he wants against Whyte and Joshua.
Fury already tried to get out of dealing with the headache of facing Wilder by walking away from his contractual rematch with the American.
That didn’t work out too well for Fury and his management, as an American arbitrator ruled in Deontay’s favor that Tyson must face him.
When it finally looked like Fury was going to fight Wilder last July, the big 6’9″ Tyson came down with COVID-19 and had to pull out of the fight.
The rumors are that Fury didn’t have COVID, but rather than he was nowhere near ready physically to face Wilder again, as he was getting pummeled by his daily by his sparring partners.
Being out of the ring for close to two years is a long time for any fighter, especially a guy in his 30s like Fury, who has a soft body. The worst thing you can do with a finesse fighter is let them sit them for two years and bring them back against a puncher.
All that time that Fury has been sitting and reveling about his win over Wilder a year and a half ago may have ultimately taken the best part of what Tyson had left.
Although Fury got away with sitting idle from 2016 to 2018, he was younger then and capable of snapping back to form. Despite that, Fury did lose a lot from his game by sitting on his backside for close to three years.
If you look at Fury’s performance against Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015 and compare it to how he’s looked in his six fights since then, he’s lost a lot from his game due to inactivity, aging and letting his weight get out of control.
Wilder is in the position of spoiler for Fury, and he has a real shot at preventing him from getting those big money fights.
A bad knockout loss for Fury on October 9th would send him back into the rebuilding stage, and he could forget about challenging Joshua for his three straps next year.