There was a lot of controversy surrounding the finish of the first fight, but that really isn’t the case for the rematch. As we mentioned two days ago in our prediction, anything can happen when it comes to boxing, especially heavyweight boxing. I said that the second least likely finish behind a Wilder win by decision was a Fury finish, but Tyson walked into that ring with a point to prove. He is the greatest heavyweight of this era.
I wanted Deontay to win by KO, but that fight was decided long before it ended. I think it was in the third, when Fury delivered the knockdown with a blow to Deontay’s ear. Replay showed it was borderline back of the head, if I remember properly, but it exposed Wilder for being a puncher rather than a boxer. It didn’t look malicious. I like Deontay because he is a fighter and he furthered that belief by showing his willingness to be carried out on his shield. I was incredibly impressed by his ability to keep fighting past that moment, which I would wager caused some brain damage due to the constant bleeding from his ear. He talked about his legs being weak after the fight, but they weren’t. When you get hit there, you lose your equilibrium. You can’t balance. Deontay’s power comes from his ability to ground himself and use the power through the floor, into his legs, through his hips and core, and turn that into a devastating punch. As soon as that injury occurred, the fight was over.
Tyson is an anomaly. He is a character, a true one of a kind. He took over the heavyweight division from Klitschko, but fell off as a result of his inner demons. The heavyweight division has lacked depth for a while. Joshua showed he isn’t top tier with his loss to Ruiz. He furthered that, in my mind, with his style change in the rematch. Wilder was exposed as a puncher in this loss. You can only make it so far without proper defensive technique. Many of the all time greats proved their chins and ability to move. Deontay has faced poor competition that have sometimes been little more than targets.
Fury has the division now. I’d love to see a match with Joshua, to silence everyone, but I doubt Joshua’s camp will let that happen. They’ll duck Fury to keep Joshua’s name in the mix and avoid Fury from gathering all the belts. Fury will take any fight. I’d like to see Deontay move down to cruiserweight and try to work on his legacy by holding belts in another division. He is always in great shape, so dropping a few pounds from his normal fighting weight shouldn’t be too challenging. He can develop his jab, work on his movement and use that massive reach, in order to quickly earn a title shot. I’m not saying that Deontay can’t be the top heavyweight again, I still think he is the second best in the world, but it just might not be in his best interest. If he can cope with that impact on his ego, he can continue his career. That is just one option; the choice is his.
It could be attributed to the growth of MMA, but we just don’t have the depth in the heavyweight division or the rest of boxing that we had in the past. We saw that when they pulled Tyson, Lennox and Holyfield in the ring, or at least, that is what I saw. I don’t necessarily think that Stipe can stand toe to toe with Tyson in the ring, but if MMA didn’t blow up, a lot of those combat fighters might have been boxers and by strictly focusing on that one aspect of fighting, they could have been really competitive in the ring.
It is a lot to unfold and we can talk about it for hours, but at the end of the day, a well-recovered Tyson Fury showed us that he is back and that he is the best heavyweight in the world. I do think that if that shot didn’t land in the third, it wouldn’t have necessarily been as dominant of a performance and that Wilder showed us how tough he was by fighting through that, but it was obvious when they showed the backstage cameras that Fury was full of confidence and Wilder was full of nervous energy.
Not the outcome that I wanted, but it could be the outcome that heavyweight boxing needed. Now it is simply of manner of what the top five in the world will do next.
(Overall rating… the card wasn’t really worth the $80, but that is boxing!)
