I’m not a big boxing fan, but I’m really looking forward to this Saturday’s fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Tyson Fury.
The Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko, 39, is, of course, the reigning heavyweight world champion of four sanctioning bodies, holding the titles of the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO. He has the second most successful title defenses total of any heavyweight boxer with 23 (behind Joe Louis). He’s also highly intelligent, speaks four languages, plays chess and is a consummate professional.
Currently undefeated, the British Tyson Fury, 27, is a 6’9" man mountain and a complete lunatic. He recently described himself as “the most charismatic, the most colourful, the most controversial champion since Muhammad Ali and that’s what the world has been waiting for”. He arrived at the press conference for the fight dressed as Batman and fought with The Joker. He headbutted a melon. At yesterday’s public workout he sang a Bette Midler song to the crowd. Here’s a highlight reel of his crazy antics.
Also, here’s a great 20-minute round table discussion between the two fighters.
Fury’s batshit craziness has a darker unappetizing side, though, and he recently compared homosexuality and abortion to pedophilia. For this reason, for his hubristic blasphemy in comparing himself to Muhammad Ali and since I think Klitschko is a good man, I’ll be cheering on the Ukrainian fighter.
Agree, I’m from the UK but Fury seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
His pretty disgusting views are bad enough but to compound it he seems to be that most terrible of people in that he thinks he is funny, but isn’t. It is like he has had humour explained to him once and thinks he “gets” it.
He doesn’t.
I hope he gets pounded back to the stone age that spawned his hateful views.
Im not a big fan of Tyson Fury, but part of me hopes that Fury(who I view as the boxing equivalent of an internet troll) upsets the sporting world and wins. If I watch I’ll probably switch my allegiance with every punch thrown.
Think Fury will do well - he’s enormously improved since he started out, when he really was just a fat alehouse fighter. Well enough to put Wlad down would be a huge stretch (and he needs to put him down as Fury’s not getting a cup of tea out of the judges), but he’s got a better chance than most. All depends on whether he’s got the bottle for it - certainly looks like he does, with his IDGAF behaviour - appearances can be deceiving, though. It’s a massive step up for him and Wlad has done this a hundred times now.
Man-child Fury is 4 to 1 outsider. As he’s at pains to point out to his opponent, at 39 Klitschko is getting on a bit and and at some point he’s going to start to decline. Still, he’s not been beaten since 2004 - could tomorrow be the day?
It’s not what you’d call a stellar fight. Klitschko looked awful, he’s old, he was facing a big guy. It’s not like Fury looked great either, but it’s hard to criticize his performance because it was ideal against the guy he was facing.
It wasn’t a great fight as a spectacle for the casual fan, with relatively few punches landing. Fury’s greater reach and movement, as well as his general unorthodoxy and unpredictability, proved too much for the veteran Klitschko, who ended the fight weary and with a bloodied face. It was close, though, and what the judges would make of it was not a foregone conclusion. Their scorecards read 115-112, 115-112, 116-111.
Klitschko’s saying he’s going to take up the rematch option in the contract so we should see it all happening again, unless he has second thoughts in the coming weeks and decides to retire. Also on the horizon is a match for the new champion against American WBC belt holder Deontay Wilder, who has apparently been having a war of words on Twitter with Fury for some time, and who described the weekend’s fight as “boring” and a “dance competition”.