AJ isnt done in my opinion, yes they made a bad choice trying to outbox usyk but someone in the the camp must have thought they could succeed.
Rob mcracken was missing with the olympics for most of the camp, maybe the camp needs a shuffle or total change but i wouldnt be surprised if aj came back to claim the win in a rematch using rough fighting tactics.
btw i am not a fan boy, i cant stand the bloke
I think AJ needs fresh voices in his corner, he also needs to regain some confidence, but there is a very good heavyweight there for sure.
People are rightly saying the best way for AJ to beat Usyk is to be more aggressive but doesn't AJ have the gas thank & probably more of the problem does he have the balls to get hit himself to land big shots I don't think he has
People say Ruiz changed him but maybe it was Wlad who started it & Ruiz just rubber stamped it , He just doesn't take shots well anymore at all,
Some fighters confidence or lack of is a big thing.
Price was doing real well until the Thompson fight and since then he's struggled to do anything at all.
The world titles (WBA, WBO, WBC and IBF) will soon be splintered again. No doubt each of the sanctioning bodies will be hounding Usyk in particular to fulfill his mandatories after he beats Joshua again, and this is a hard thing to do when you are not a huge name (he is a big name but not big enough, see what happened Fury after the Wlad win, IBF stripped him pretty much immediately for not fulfilling his mandatory, even though Wlad had a rematch clause). Its a joke really, there will never be an undisputed HW champ on paper holding every title, Usyk beating Joshua has put paid to that.
Sanctioning bodies are very selective about whom they give an easy ride to. Some fighters holding their titles will be allowed avoid mandatories, but others are given no option but to defend and vacate. Rematches don't even come into equation (i.e let me fulfill my rematch and i'll see to mandatory defence after, this isn't even enough).
Dillian Whyte must be WBC number 1 contender for the last 3 or 4 years no? I'm sure the Povetkin loss knocked him down.
As it stands Usyk holding WBA, WBO and IBF titles has the following guys in mandatory positions:
WBA: Regular champ is Trevor Bryan
IBF: Charles Martin
WBO: Joe Joyce
The WBA are probably going to insist on Usyk fighting Bryan, no US HW champ now so they will want a title back in the states and maybe doesn't have the clout Joshua and Eddie Hearn had, in terms of getting guys to step aside. Usyk will have to pay the likes of Bryan to wait his turn and may simply vacate instead.
Fury as WBC title holder has:
WBC: Dillian Whyte
Likewise, Fury may have no interest in fighting Whyte just in order to hold onto his WBC title, he may vacate, claim he is the man, his ring magazine belt is enough for him, take a warm up fight and wait for Usyk or Joshua as the big money fight in UK. WBC have already ruled that Fury has to fight either Usyk or winner of Whyte V Wallin next. So, as AJ has his rematch, this will have to be Whyte or Wallin.
Chance of ever getting the one guy holding every belt is very slim IMO.
Watching boxing can be sad at times when former boxers turned pundits have clear after-effects from the sport. Fury has gotten this far, I don't think he has any interest in barely finishing sentences by the age of 50.
It's crazy to think Fury is only 33. If he wants to he could fight for another 5 years or til he's 40 and create a massive legacy for himself in the sport. Whether that's what he wants or if it's the right thing for him personally is another thing altogether.
I think if Usyk beats AJ & Fury beats Whyte we will see an undisputed fight ,
I reckon Fury wins and walks away ,
Will Fury even bother wit a Dillian Whyte fight though? His record in terms of defending the titles isn't hectic.
More likely he'd vacate and sit and wait for outcome of Usyk-Joshua which means he could be out of ring for over a year. Common sense thing to do would be a defence against Whyte, that tune up would provide preparation for a undisputed fight against Usyk or AJ (it will be Usyk).
If it was a likely wait for Fury v AJ, I could imagine the belts being in situ for it, but Usyk won't have the clout to hold onto them all, once he beats Joshua he will have every sanctioning body (WBO, WBA and IBF) breathing down his neck to fulfill his mandatories. Its not the case with AJ, because Hearn managed it very well (even though Usyk himself was a mandatory, but this was only fulfilled because Fury fight fell through). Don't forget, these sanctioning bodies don't work together.
The fact Usyk will prob win again and doesn't have a huge promoter fighting his corner means his belts will be ripe for the picking. Obviously belts mean feck all, but the OCD streak in me wants to see it call cleaned up and one guy holding them all :P
Ah right maybe so. I must take another look but it seemed to me he was checking on his cognition.
Well in R4 he threw jabs to middle before the KD. I think he half abandoned and half couldnt stick to it with tiredness, and Fury being good.
Yea I vagely remember that too. Fury did look very tired and as the seconds tipped away he may have got off the hook on that one. Didn’t look beaten at any time though.
Fury didn’t really oblige. He lost his own game plan and it took him until 11 to get Wilder beaten. Sugarhill was screaming at him to jab as he knew that would set up a finish.
This Whyte talk is going to look very premature in 3 weeks time when Wallin beats him.
I'd have to agree with that, went on at least a couple of rounds too long for me.
On the fight being stopped a little earlier: Very difficult to call. As Wilder, although tired, was still engaging and landing
Plus, he dropped Fury heavy. He still had the chance to get a KO. It's not an exact science of knowing.
I wouldn't fault the referee too much, as he was up close and personal, and I'd trust his judgment
More for the corner to pull it, but as we know, Wilder and team were likely very insistent on allowing him the possible hail mary.
Like I said, a lot of inaccuracy and missing shots in the fight. Even when Wilder was tired and groggy, many shots were missing and glancing etc. The referee must have been factoring this in. It wasn't all one way traffic in the sense of a large percentage of Fury shots landing clean...
If Fury vacates why would he get the AJ v Usyk winner ? He wouldn't have the WBC belt or be a mandatory ,
Whyte would want be getting the shot because the winner of Aj v Usyk would want the WBC title & see Whyte are the easier fight for the bigger prize,
Fury will fight Whyte (if he beats Wallin)
Bit of Triva but Fury v Whyte might be the first heavy weight title fight in history where both have a recent Irish connection
Fury's Da JOhn & Ma Amber are Irish & Whyte's grand father is Irish
It will surely come down to money. Fury v AJ/Usyk is worth alot more money.
Not sure Dillian Whyte v Usyk for all the marbles is a money spinner.
All this is mute, as Whyte has to navigate his way past Wallin first. Which seems like a strange matchup given Wallin is not even a top 15 guy with WBC, so its obviously a voluntary defence of Whytes interim WBC title.
Point i'm making is I don't see Fury bending to any pressure that he has to fight Wallin/Whyte. I'd say he is the type of lad who would bin his belt rather than take a fight against one of those guys, he is pretty much the lineal world champion so a fight against Usyk/AJ wouldn't be far from his grasp.
Well if that fight gets stopped in seven in Europe it gets stopped earlier, in four, when Fury was all over the place.
Point is he was being seriously damaged, should have been stopped earlier.
dont be silly Fury was always getting up and fully aware of his surroundings
Fury looked out if it both times.
I'm not saying the fight should have been stopped, I'm saying that if a guy believes it should have been stopped in 7 then the same applies in round 4.
Disagree he looked out of it, he was certainly in better shape than wilder was in rounds 7-11,
although i agree it went on too long i would also have difficulty in pointing out when exactly it should have been stopped.
Fury got up and was sound on his feet, you must have been watching a different fight.
Fury wasn't looking like a robot for 5 round getting chinned and taking massive blows to the head repeatedly
Fury didn't look out of it frankly at all, but my argument is that Wilder was taking an unnecessary beating. Fury didn't at any point, any more that you'd expect.
I can't see how you possibly compare the 2
Fury was out of it for a few seconds, but did climb up off the canvas and was firing back soon after...
I am not disagreeing. My point was more of it being very difficult to call. These thing are rarely exact. Lot of things to consider. Ones I mentioned
He was firing back, he was not getting tagged hugely consistently (lot of missed shots), and he had the equalizer. I think the referee certainly did his job properly
Would hardly be the first. I'd say if you went back to the early days with the likes of Jack Dempsey that it would have been common enough. I'm just assuming that so I could be wrong. Sure even Ali had an Irish great grandfather.
Joshua also has an Irish grandfather I think
Sure isn't everyone Irish!!!!
Don't have to go that far back.
Any given Saturday/ Sunday morning at 2am outside supermacs in Ballinasloe you'll find 2 heavyweights going at it hammer and tongs
Ye Jacks da was Irish,
He had what 8 fights as champion, I know people thought for a long time Bill Brennan was Irish born but that ended up being a lie he was German but he did fight Gene Tunney who's both parents where Irish ,
So your correct ,
You’ve added Fury’s score up wrong there. You have it 95-91.
You guys notice the contrast between sugarhill with Fury wnd aj’s corner? Urgency, direct and simple message and a good dose of shut up and listen. Aj should nearly take Fury up on the offer to train him
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