Misdirected Fury: the scorecard was off target but the fight was close
Dick Turpin was at work in Essex last night protested Frank Maloney, promoter of John McDermott, the stout English heavyweight who found himself on the wrong end of controversial 98-92 verdict from referee Terry O’Connor after his battle against the highly touted Tyson Fury.
Maloney had every right to be livid with O’Connor’s points tally in this English heavyweight title fight, which was way off target incidentally, however the fight itself was a close one and the deluge of ‘robbery’ claims which have followed would appear to be equally as cock-eyed.
Having poured over the fight again today with a more inquiring eye, I turned in a 96-95 card for McDermott (5-4-1 in rounds), however the final round was difficult to score (I gave it to McDermott by the slenderest of margins), as was the sixth, which I called even.
Perhaps my judgement was impaired somewhat owing to the controversy and cries from some quarters than Fury hadn’t taken so much as a round, scoring perception can be altered in such cases and one can subconsciously overcompensate. Nevertheless, I had Fury racing to a 3-0 lead in rounds, due to his snappier work with the jab and greater industriousness.
Rounds four and five were clearly McDermott’s as Fury’s fitness began to hinder him, this only his eighth pro outing and the young giant finding himself facing the strange scenario of an opponent returning fire.
The sixth was tough to split, however McDermott came on again in the seventh, landing a hefty right over the top after a bright start to the round from Fury, following up with a hurtful left hook. Lead lefts and hooks from ‘Big Bad’ John were able to override Fury’s pecking and poking to level the fight up.
McDermott, squat and sturdy, chugged slowly forward in the eighth, landing perhaps the best punch of the fight, an overhand right which crashed against Fury’s head midway through the round. Fury was visibly tired at this point, this being the furthest he’d been extended and having completed more rounds here than in his last three fights combined.
Tyson responded in the ninth, focussing in on McDermott’s midriff with quick, popping shots and hurting the home fighter just before the bell with a chopping right hand. The last was tight; McDermott nicking it for me with a handful of hard, clean punches in what had been a decent domestic level bout, if a somewhat scrappy affair.
Quite where O’Connor’s scoring came from is a mystery and any ire from fans should be directed in his direction. Everyone is fallible of course and off nights can occur, however this was pretty startling, McDermott clearly battled his way to victory in more than two rounds.
As for Fury, now fingered by many as a villain, there are upsides and down. His game, despite his name and his frame, should be based on work rate and combination punching rather than power, that’s what will separate him from much of the chaff. In order to facilitate this, he needs to increase his fitness and I mean ten fold, as in Enzo Calzaghe directed conditioning. His defence needs considerable work as does his punching technique; he displayed too many weary arm punches here.
The upside is that after only a handful of fights, he’s able to mix it with domestic top ten heavyweights. He’s also shown a great appetite to get in there and fight against decent men, calling for an immediate rematch post fight. His aim should be to go away and improve, before illustrating this in a return.
McDermott can rightly feel aggrieved at the verdict however in a perverse way, his own profile may profit from the controversy surrounding the fight. People are talking about this one, folk who normally don’t follow boxing. In fact at work on Monday I’ll wager that they’ll be talking about John, which can’t harm his career whatsoever.
Far too often, fans and indeed the media can jump on board a bandwagon and a dubious judge’s card can lead to cries of ‘fix’ and ‘robbery’ (Sky’s rather one sided commentary may not have helped in this regard). That wasn’t the case here, the fight was close enough for argument and both fighters’ careers can progress.
Quite what becomes of Mr. O’Connor’s however now remains to be seen.
It’s similar in many ways to the recent Malignaggi v Diaz fight. A undoubtedly close fight, marred by a ridiculous scorecard (the 118-110 one of course). I had McDermott winning by a couple of rounds, but there were a lot of close rounds and as you say, fans often get swayed by the commentary.
Think Fury’s lacking though Haz, I really do. With all due respect to McDermott, he’s strictly domestic fodder. Even a badly faded Danny Williams managed to clearly beat him the second time round. And the much maligned Matt Skelton walked through McDermott without too much hassle (I don’t buy this “outside the ring problems”, if your not fit mentally or physically then don’t fight. Simple).
Yes this was a big jump up for Fury and there was perhaps an unfair expectation on him to perform exceptionally well but, as I said yesterday, he brought all this pressure on himself with that big mouth of his. If your going to put yourself on the line, then you need to back up all your big talk, big time!
Now, as you say, there is lots to like about him (workrate, solid chin, willingness to have a go, combination punching and grit) but there is also LOTS to work on. His defence is the obvious chink, but his punching technique equally needs DRASTIC improvement. It’s ok throwing arm-punches if you have natural power like Viatli Klitschko, but obviously he doesn’t so he needs to work on setting his feet more and putting weight behind his punches. No good being nearly 17 and a half stone if you punch like a flyweight. Even Valuev, who’s biggest criticism is that he doesn’t punch his weight, carries respectable power.
Fury is still young and can address these flaws and go on to have a respectable career. But I still believe we are no closer to finding our heavyweight saviour. Haye is a possibilty, but he’s always one punch away from getting sparked and seems to spend more time in a studio flapping his gums than in the ring these days.
Povetkin is solid but unspectacular. Ustinov didn’t impress me much against Sprott. Boytsov is highly touted but he didn’t manage to stop with the deplorable Vinny Maddalone so already I have my doubts about him. Arreola? Puh-lease!
The other week I read one of my old KO magazines circa 95. One of the articles complained about the state of the heavyweight division. A division that at the time had Holyfield, Tyson, Lewis, Bowe, Foreman, Moorer amongst others.
I wonder what that writer is saying now?
He’s definitely lacking Dave, I think he’ll have a lump in his throat when he watches the replay, he rates himself far higher than the bloke he’ll see struggling with McDermott.
I honestly can’t see him getting serious now until he loses, which probably isn’t too far away. An immediate rematch with McDermott can’t possibly go any other way and with the controversy here, John almost has a golden ticket to a points win if he puts in a similar shift.
Fury is already a star in his own mind and to those around him, (big fish, tiny pond), we’ve seen it countless times before. He needs an enormous amount of work, however as long as he keeps winning, he’ll convince himself he doesn’t until the inevitable happens. If he can manage to get himself fit however, as in fit to fight at a high tempo for twelve rounds, he could outwork a lot of heavies, there’s a gap in the market for a Joe Frazier type buzzsaw, most of these lugs can’t fight three minutes of a round. That combined with his size, is the only think I can see which gives him a shot at progressing past British level.
As for a heavyweight saviour, we could be waiting a while. Haye says all of the right things, he knows the key to beating a Klitschko is to come in fit and be ready to work ridiculously hard. Most fall into the trap of adding dead weight so they can cope with the K’s size which plays right into their hands. Even heavyweights used to have a fight weight, these days they come in however they please, fat, bloated and fight like……..well…….big fat guys……slow…..uninterested………lazy……….
Until a little guy shows the way, it’s a trend that will continue. The modern myth now is that heavyweights are naturally getting bigger (see fatter) and they get better after 30. History may prove this an abberation, probably due to the success of Lennox Lewis.
As for the 90′s, yep I remember well that the pervading mood of the period was one of frustration over the fighters we had. In comparison to this lot they look awesome, however at the time and compared to the first version of Mike Tyson they were seen as far inferior.
History has been revised since of course.
Good point about the heavyweights adding false weight to deal with K bros strength. An obvious example of this would be Danny Williams against Vitali. Now I don’t think Danny could ever have beating Vitali, but he didn’t give himself a chance by coming in at 18 stone. He was just a punching bag with arms and legs and could barely move. The big weakness with the Klitschkos is that they’re robotic, especially Vitali, so nimble footwork and handspeed is surely the order of the day against them.