Despite his rough, tough and very, very bloody win over huge underdog Otto Wallin this past Saturday night in Las Vegas, unbeaten giant Tyson Fury has retained his position as the number-one big man on the planet according to ‘The Bible of Boxing,’ Ring Magazine.
Fury, made to work much harder than anyone had expected, due in most part to the quite horrific cut the largely unknown Swedish southpaw opened with a punch in the third round, did not look like a great fighter any more than he looked like an unbeatable one. Deontay Wilder, for example, would perhaps have taken Wallin out in double-quick fashion, as might Anthony Joshyua have done. But that’s the beauty, and the intrigue, of the sport; of the heavyweight division: styles makes fights.
Fury showed championship calibre quality in refusing to either panic over getting so badly cut or give in fighting hard as he bled so heavily. In short, Fury sucked it up when it would have been quite easy for him to have quit and opted to come back another day. As it is, plenty of critics – Wallin included – say the fight SHOULD have been stopped, that the ghastly cut was that bad.
But Fury fought through limited vision and he went home with a pretty wide points decision in improving his record to 29-0-1(20). Fury has to win that return fight with Wilder if he’s to be accepted by everyone as the top dog of the division, however. And Fury, should he prevail in the Wilder return (who knows if it will still go ahead in February as scheduled; very possibly not as Fury’s near 50-stitch wound doesn’t figure to heal as quickly as was perhaps initially thought), has to take on and beat the winner of the Andy Ruiz-Joshua return fight.
For now, though, Fury remains at the top of the pile. Just about.
Here is the new Top-10 from Ring Magazine:
1: Tyson Fury
2: Deontay Wilder
3: Andy Ruiz
4: Anthony Joshua
5: Dillian Whyte
6: Luis Ortiz
7: Alexander Povetkin
8: Joseph Parker
9: Adam Kownacki
10: Kubrat Pulev