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.

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?