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Wilder v Fury II

Mikhail Bakunin

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Fury vs. Joshua is The Next Mega-Event: Taking a Look Back
By Ron Lewis Published On Tue Feb 25, 2020, 01:24 AM EST

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Time moves on quickly in boxing. Right now, the only huge heavyweight clash in the sport would be Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. And after his demolition of Deontay Wilder at the weekend, not that many people are confidently predicting a Joshua win should they meet.

As far as it is known, Fury and Joshua have only shared a ring once, a decade ago, and at the time, Fury happily admitted that it was Joshua who got the better of things.

It was Fury who was one of the first to let on to the world that there was a talented heavyweight lurking in North London called Anthony Joshua. Now they seem to be increasingly bitter rivals, on a collision course to one of the biggest fights in boxing history, then they were young fighters making their way in the sport.

Fury has been a professional for two years at that point, Joshua had just won the ABA super-heavyweight title, but only a few people really had an idea of his potential. However, those behind him were confident enough to offer Joshua up for some sparring with the 6ft 9in prospect at Finchley Boxing Club, where he gave Fury a bit of a hiding.

“He’s red hot,” Fury told Steve Bunce’s radio show at the time. “I thought I have only got to take it easy because he is only an amateur and he probably won’t spar again if I go mad.

“He’s rushed out at me and threw a one-two, left hook, and I slipped and slide. And bash he hit me a big uppercut right on the point of the chin. If I had a weak chin like David Price, I would have been knocked out for a month.

“He is very, very, very good and only young, 20. Watch out for that name, Anthony Joshua.”

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Their relationship changed soon after, as Joshua’s stratospheric rise through the amateur ranks to Olympic gold in 2012 was followed by equally fast progression through the professional ranks to the point where he picked up all of the belts that Fury had won from Wladimir Klitschko, almost as quickly as Fury was handing them back.

Legend has it that when George Harrison was once asked what he would have been if The Beatles had not been a success, he answered “a better guitarist”. Likewise, there are those that think Joshua was prevented from being the best he could have been by becoming a world champion when he did.

Had Tyson Fury not gone off the rails and given up the titles he won from Wladimir Klitschko, Joshua’s rise to being a world champion would have been significantly delayed.

When Fury beat Klitschko, Joshua had not even boxed for the British title. Fury never defended any of his world titles. He was stripped of the IBF belt soon after he won it and then handed back the WBA, IBO and WBO titles when depression drove him into a life of drink, drugs and over-eating.

Fury’s problems became an opportunity for Joshua and his promoter, Eddie Hearn. So when, in April 2016, Joshua challenged Charles Martin for the IBF title, the thinking was not whether Joshua was ready to become world champion, but whether he was ready to beat Charles Martin. There is no doubt he was, as he quickly demonstrated.

The problem was, as a world champion, you have to have world-title fights. So, his training was thereafter tailored his next title fights, rather than developing Joshua into a completely rounded fighter. The years of development and sparring for the hell of it were missed out.

The biggest risk was taken when Joshua boxed Klitschko, which was seen as a “then or never” opportunity against a boxer, who against Fury, had shown signs that me might struggle to “pull the trigger” any more.

It all came unstuck in his first fight with Andy Ruiz Jr, when he rushed in after flooring the Mexican-American and was nailed by a shot from which he didn’t recover. It is difficult to knock his performance in the rematch. It was risk-free boxing, about as far away from the naturally aggressive younger Joshua as you could get.

Joshua is certainly nowhere as bad as the naysayers suggest, but neither is he as good as the hype. However, those are statements that could count for any boxer, including Fury.

He does offer Fury a different challenge to Wilder. Likewise, Joshua has always been happier fighting taller opponents than shorter ones. Fury, though, has now proved his ability once and for all. The question mark still hovers over Joshua.
 

Mikhail Bakunin

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Some ancient history. A Black fighter named Lloyd Honeyghan once dropped a belt to avoid fighting a Boer from South Africa because of Apartied. Shirley Finkel got Mark Breland to take the fight instead. This was in 1987.

The Breland-Volbrecht fight was originally scheduled as a title elimination bout, with the winner earning a shot at champion Lloyd Honeyghan of England. But Honeyghan, who is black, said he would not fight Volbrecht if he defeated Breland because of South Africa's apartheid government. Honeyghan, who also owns the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation titles, relinquished the WBA championship to avoid meeting Volbrecht.

South African Harold Volbrecht, who will fight Mark Breland...

BoxRec: Mark Breland
 

Mikhail Bakunin

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Former heavyweight world titlist Deontay Wilder said Friday that he has decided to keep careerlong co-trainer Mark Breland as part of his team.

Wilder suffered a seventh-round knockout loss in his rematch with Tyson Fury last Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas when Breland threw in the towel, ending what had been a one-sided fight in which Wilder had already been knocked down twice and was taking tremendous punishment.

"I'm a warrior. I feel the same way I felt on fight night -- if I have to go out, I want to go out on my shield," Wilder told ESPN in a statement Friday night. "But I understand that my corner and my team has my best interest at heart. Mark Breland is still a part of Team Wilder and our team looks forward to preparing for the [trilogy fight]."

Wilder plans to exercise his contractual right to face Fury again in their next fight. They fought to a disputed draw in their first fight, in December 2018.

After Breland threw in the towel last week, Jay Deas, Wilder's co-trainer, said he did not agree with Breland's decision, and Wilder also was extremely upset.

"For Mark to do it, I was very heartbroken," Wilder told ESPN earlier this week. "If I say statements like I want to kill a man [in the ring], then I have to abide by those same principles in the ring of him doing the same thing to me. I'd rather die than go out with someone throwing the towel in.

"He knows these things. It's been premeditated. I've said this for many years. I told all my trainers, no matter how it may look on the outside, no matter how you may love me or have that emotional feeling, don't make an emotional decision and do not ever throw that towel in because my pride is everything. I understand what it looks like but when you have power like me I am never out of a fight, no matter what the circumstances. I'm never out of a fight."

Wilder said at the time that he and the whole team loved Breland but he would decide whether to keep him in the corner following a trip to Africa that Wilder is soon to embark upon. But Wilder made the decision before leaving.

Breland was an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time world champion as a professional before beginning to train fighters.

England's Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), 31, knocked Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs), 34, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, down in the third round with a right hand to the head and with a body shot in the fifth round before Breland finally threw in the towel with Wilder under assault in the seventh.

According to Fury co-promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, the third fight is contractually due to take place by July 18 in the United States. But Arum said he would consult with Wilder co-manager Al Haymon of Premier Boxing Champions on figuring out the exact date. Arum said the Fury side is willing to move the fight to the fall if Wilder needs more rest after last week's fight or if it makes sense commercially.

Last week's fight was a joint pay-per-view between Top Rank broadcaster ESPN and Fox, which has a contract with PBC. The third fight would also be a joint pay-per-view.

The fight, which received massive promotion from both outlets, generated between 800,000 and 850,000 buys, multiple sources told ESPN. While that is the biggest American heavyweight pay-per-view total since Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson generated a hair under 2 million buys in 2002, Wilder-Fury II needed to sell about 1.2 million subscriptions for the event to break even, according to sources. Wilder and Fury were guaranteed more than $25 million apiece on a deal that was 50-50 between the sides. The third fight flips to 60-40 in favor of the Fury side since he won.
 

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