Nobody, not his opponents, not the average fan, not the average expert, can say heavyweight champ (of the lineal variety; arguably the most important, especially nowadays with the quite frustrating proliferation of ‘alphabelts’ out there) Tyson Fury cannot fight. He most certainly can, as his brilliant wins over Wladimir Klitschko and Dereck Chisora (twice), along with his draw with Deontay Wilder prove.
But the knock on the 6’9” giant is that he is, simply put, a boring fighter. Dull. Sleep-inducing. Tedious. Monotonous. Repetitive. Numbing……..and on and on. This accusation has been leveled at Fury before now, and by a number of people (promoter Eddie Hearn for one example) and it has just been shot at Fury again, by Wilder. Wilder insists that Fury is “nothing in America” without him, and that he, as in Fury, talks, and talks, as a way of keeping himself interesting to the fans.
Is Wilder correct? In terms of his style and approach in the ring, Fury is these days more cerebral than all-action. He is more defensive giant than gigantic slugger. Fury, though, is effective – and nobody has thus far managed to prove otherwise and beat him. So could it be sour grapes from Wilder, who really had to swing some before he finally found his target when these two, for many the two best heavyweights in the world today, clashed back in December, or is “The Bronze Bomber” correct in his assertions?
Fury must have heard the boring tag, and he seems to have paid attention to it – see his hands behind his back motions that appear in a number of his fights, these intended no doubt to inspire some reaction from the watching fans. And see also Fury’s various other show-boating abilities. Sure, these moves could be intended to distract and off-put his opponent and nothing more, but isn’t it possible Fury is, in his fights, trying to generate interest and, knowing he cannot KO his foe, he does the Roy Jones stuff in a effort to do so? Maybe.
It’s true Fury’s biggest career win, over Klitschko, was an almost unwatchable fight, bereft of action and notable simply because it was A: a world heavyweight title fight, and B: it saw a massive upset scored by Fury. And it’s also true that the Wilder fight was the most thrilling fight of Fury’s career so far. But was this down to Wilder more so than it was down to Fury? Fury has provided us with some genuinely dreary fights in his time: see also his win over Francesco Pianeta, his second win over Chisora and his win over Sefer Seferi (this despite the fact that the fight ended well inside the distance) and right now we must wait and see whether or not Fury gives value for money to the fans in his upcoming fights on ESPN.
Being referred to as boring is not the worst bit of criticism a fighter can have hurled at him, and greater fighters than Fury have had to hear it over the years (Floyd Mayweather for one) but it is perhaps down to the fact that Fury used to be so thrilling (albeit reckless) in fights, how he so drastically changed his style, that has caused him to be signaled out.
But if YOU were a fighter, which would you rather be – exciting yet hittable, or boring but (almost) untouchable?
