Another huge boxing event has become a casualty of the ongoing pandemic and this time it’s the trilogy between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.
It was supposed to transpire next weekend but a Covid-19 outbreak in Fury’s camp led to its cancellation and it’s now penciled to take place on Oct. 9.
RUMORS. But because this is boxing, there will always be some hullabaloo tethered to it and this time around what was being circulated around the rumor mill was that ticket sales were quite poor, leading to its postponement.
I would prefer not to deal with the speculation but personally, I find it hard to believe that such a huge fight will have difficulty finding an audience.
If people were gullible enough to fork over pay-per-view money to watch Floyd Mayweather Jr. strut around the ring like a popinjay but fail to impress against YouTiuber Logan Paul , it may not be amiss to state that the biggest fight in the most popular division should at least hold its own.
Unless of course, the day that I have dreaded is already upon us: Boxing reduced to pageantry and spectacle, with fans opting for macabre, horrid exhibition matches featuring personalities over hard fought, true donnybrooks between professional warriors.
WILDER. Speaking of Floyd, an interesting sidebar to this trilogy was his offer to train Wilder for this fight. According to him, if Wilder listens, he can make him victorious over Fury.
Now being a true student of the science part of the “Sweet Science,” I find this possibility utterly beguiling.
To the casual fan, Wilder is a beast, a true knockout artist who needs little or no further instructions at all.
There will be those who insist that at this stage of his career, he can learn no new tricks and any attempt to change what he has been successful at will only lead to his ruin.
I would beg to disagree. Life is never about absolutes. Wherever I find rigidity, I always question it. The moment you stop learning is the moment you choose to stop living.
In boxing, you can always learn new things and each fight, whether it results in victory or defeat, carries with it its own unique lessons.
Wilder is raw , punches wide and relies solely on his power. True, with 41 KOs in 42 fights, he could very well be the most devastating puncher in history. But his loss to Fury in the rematch demonstrated that an opponent who has some size (like Fury) who can handle some of his power and who has excellent boxing skills is his waterloo.
A few tweaks here and there might just be what he needs to get him over that Fury hump.
The way I see it, Wilder has two choices: Stick with what he has and go out on his shield and be content with the “most devastating puncher” tag, or dare to be even greater by adding new weapons to his arsenal and possibly go down as one of the greatest heavyweights in history.
With the fight moved three months back there’s more than sufficient time for him to consider Floyd’s offer.
VERBATIM. “Basically, you could go online and check. I don’t know whether it was 25% or 30% of the tickets have been sold, but that’s disastrous. There was no hype. This was going to do very, very poor pay-per-view numbers.--Eddie Hearn (www.boxingscene.com)
LAST ROUND. It’s on me as my little man turns 11 today. Happy birthday to Rodan Benjamin Jericho. Cheers!