Tyson Fury sounding ambivalent about comeback

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury doesn’t appear to be as anxious as he needs to be for him to return to the ring. The 28-year-old Fury was asked this week if he plans on fighting in September, he wouldn’t say.

Fury says if he doesn’t return to the ring, then it’s “goodbye.” For someone as young as Fury is, it’s odd that he’s not anxious about wanting to get back into the ring to resume his stalled out career.

It’s been 2 years since Fury last fought in beating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) has put on a lot of weight, and he doesn’t appear to have made much headway in reducing the tonnage. That’s the worrying part. With as much time as Fury has had to lose weight, he’s still looking very heavy.
Fury is talking about how it’s hard to get motivated to continue his boxing career when his victory over Klitschko was the equivalent of him having climbed Mount Everest.

“When you climb Everest, there’s nothing else to achieve,” said Fur to Boxnation.

I hate to drizzle on Fury’s parade, but K2 is considered to be the tougher climb than Mount Everest. If we’re talking climbing mountains, K2 is seen as the much tougher climb. Seriously, Fury hasn’t even fought Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua. It’s nice that Fury defeated an old and past his prime Wladimir Klitschko, but the victory wasn’t impressive one by any means. It was boring as heck. Fury ran around the ring, trying to avoid a confused looking Wladimir, and throwing nothing but slapping shots.

If Wladimir had any ability to make minor changes to his game on the night, he would have planted the 6’9” Fury onto the canvas for the night. That fight was more about what Wladimir didn’t do than what Fury did. Wladimir is one of those fighters that doesn’t seem to be able of switching gears when he needs to. That was never more apparent than in his recent fight with Joshua. When Wladimir had Joshua ready to be knocked out in the 6th, he wouldn’t switch gears to start slugging with him to finish him off. As such, Wladimir boxed for the next 4 rounds and ended up getting knocked out in the 11th. What Fury accomplished against Wladimir was nothing. Anyone would have beaten Wladimir if they had run around the ring like Fury did.

“I’ve not been involved in the sport for nearly two years, so I don’t think it’s fair to try and dampen the lads as it’s their big time to shine,” Fury said. “My time was two years ago. If I come back there will be an announcement, but if I don’t then goodbye.”

It sounds to me like Fury needs to forget about his comeback and retire permanently instead. If Fury can’t get enough motivation to continue his boxing career, then he needs to retire. He’s not even taking the weight off that he’s put on. It’s ridiculous to talk about Fury getting back in the ring in September with him still looking heavy. Fury would need a good solid 6 to 8 months to pare off all the weight that he’s put on.

We don’t even know how good he would perform after he gets that weight off. When a person puts on around 100 pounds, you can’t expect miracles from them if you put them in an athletic competition immediately after they trim off all that weight. Fury might be weakened from taking off the weight. For Fury to get back to his old self, he needs to take the weight off, and then take 4 or 5 good tune-up matches against increasingly better opposition. Once Fury does all that, then he should consider facing Joshua, Deontay Wilder or Joseph Parker.

“I’m undefeated. Second heavyweight champion in history to retire unbeaten after Rocky Marciano.,” said Fury. ”Unified the division. Beat the man who can’t be beat. Do I need to do anymore?”

It’s a good thing that Fury is still young. If he was older, he wouldn’t have the time to fritter away like Fury is doing now. At least right now, Fury is still young even to reverse course and find success in boxing if he gets his motivation back to return to the sport. But in listening to Fury talk, he doesn’t sound like he loves the sport of boxing enough to put in the work to return and be successful.

I think Fury needs to do a lot more in boxing, but what’s the point? If he can’t get motivated enough to even take off the weight, then he might as well stay retired. Taking the weight off is the easy part. The hard part in making a comeback is the actual fighting, and getting rust out.

Fury would need to really want to continue for him to continue fighting. If he goes through the motions, he’s going to get blasted out straightaway. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of Fury’s tune-up opponents knocks him out. Fury has been talking about wanting to take on Joshua. He’s not going to be able to do that and have a chance of winning without him putting some time and effort into continuing his career.