The recent Wilder Fury 2 heavyweight title event in Las Vegas really got people talking about the heavyweight division again.
Fury’s 7th round stoppage at the MGM Grand was something spectacular to watch, no doubt about it.
A performance that had a little bit of everything and ultimately a stoppage where Wilder’s trainer Mark Breland did the right thing by throwing in the towel to save his man for the next battle.
Fury began the fight pushing Wilder back, a strategy that not many believed he’d really follow through on like he said he would prior to the fight.
I don’t think you’ll see people doubting him again after that performance.
Essentially, this game plan was set up by the most important punch in boxing (the jab) early on in an almost style adaptation for the ‘Gypsy King’ who, under his very first fight with new trainer Sugar Hill, really displayed the famous Kronk fight style from the legendary Emanuel Steward’s gym.
How Fury was able to almost transform his fight style at times in such a relatively quick turnaround was incredible when you think he had only one training camp with Hill.
He had Wilder’s footwork all over the place and in general had the Alabama man completely bamboozled.
Following the fight Hill said he might go back to just training amateur fighters but after such an incredible win for his pupil and himself, one would hope this clearly talented sweet science teacher sticks with his new student Fury and indeed sticks around in the pro game a bit longer.
While not many spoke about the jab or the way Fury flipped his fight style at times I think it is an important point to note in terms of understanding the level of genius we have on our hands from a boxing skills perspective.
Boxing is about hitting and not getting hit at the end of the day and out of any of the modern day heavyweights, Fury surely exhibits that mantra most and gives meaning to the term ‘sweet science’ more than anyone from boxing’s current heavyweight crop.
