Wilder and Fury still wanting

 

 

The current crop of fighters lacks the finesse of past boxers.

 

The likes of Wilder and Fury would be in serious trouble against fighters like Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield or Muhammad Ali.

Equally incompetent are those in charge of the scoring of fights today.

 

We are in that era where any close fight will be declared a draw just for the sake of minting more money in a re-match.

 

For starters, I thought Wilder was robbed. Those two late knockdowns should have swayed the fight in his favour.

 

Well, now as things stand there are all signs that we only have to wait for a re-match.

 

The eventual victor of the Wilder v Fury sequels should then pave the path to the much-awaited encounter with Briton Anthony Joshua.

 

Wilder versus Joshua should have happened much earlier but Joshua, even when offered $50m by the American, seemed not in a hurry

for the fight, everyone is anxiously awaiting.

 

Should the Wilder v Fury series get sorted, everyone will want Anthony to get into the mix.

 

Why Not? It's time we got to know the undisputed king of the division.

 

But you also have to give Fury his respect for his display in the just concluded fight.

 

For a heavyweight to recover from that final round flooring was no mean feat. It takes some rare fighting spirit.

 

That he was in his first big fight in almost three years was also remarkable. Even more remarkable is the story of his build-up to Sunday.

 

Fury stepped away from the ring after beating Wladmir Klitschko in 2015.

 

The 6-foot-9 fighter then ballooned to nearly 200 kilograms while binging on beer and cocaine.

 

But still Fury, with a flabby midsection, wasn't a good advertisement for boxing as he stepped into the ring at the Staples Center, Los Angeles.

 

That he could actually dance around for 12 rounds, said a lot about his determination.

 

As for Wilder, he was in much better shape and should have finished it off with a knock-out in that final round.

 

That he did not hit hard enough to send the lights out of the Fury, provided ground for the eventual result's debate.

 

Great fighters make the best of such opportunities.

 

That aside, Wilder still has a lot to do in regarding target punching. Many of his swinging shots were always off the mark.

 

Wilder would have actually been in trouble if he had met a more efficient puncher.

 

All Fury should have done was weave under one of those swings and step in with a solid punch and that would have been it.

 

It was with such precision that Evander Hollyfield on an October 1990 night knocked out then wonder boy Buster Douglas.

 

Douglas had earlier in an even more tactical fight, made Tyson look ordinary en route to knocking him out.

 

I am yet to see such class is the current fighters.