Bloodied Fury still on track for Wilder
Briton overcomes Wallin despite two horror cuts Rematch with American scheduled for February
Tyson Fury’s February rematch with World Boxing Council champion Deontay Wilder is not in jeopardy despite the deep double-cut sustained here in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Fury was forced to scrap his way to a gory unanimous points decision over the previously undefeated Otto Wallin after suffering the dual wounds around his right eye in only the third round of their encounter at the T-mobile Arena.
The initial fear was that the severity of the cut would put serious doubts over the scheduled rematch with Wilder, which has been slated for Feb 22 here.
Cuts of that nature can often require internal and external stitching as well as plastic surgery and laser treatment, which would mean the fight and training camp would come too soon.
But promoter Frank Warren said
‘How many fights have you seen where they’ve let it go on like that?’
he had already checked with a medical specialist about the potential timeframe and that he was not expecting a delay.
Warren and Fury had discussed the idea of boxing again in December before the February showdown and, although that is now out of the question, the promoter is confident the former world heavyweight champion will be fully recovered by February.
“We wanted the fight in December,” Warren said. “That won’t happen, but he has five months. We will see what happens. The doctor said it was a clean cut, so it doesn’t need microsurgery inside. And he said it would stitch well. Fingers crossed it will be all right.
“He can’t train with a cut. All he has got to do is maintain a decent weight to work on for when he can be in the gym back sparring. It won’t stop him running; it won’t stop him doing other things.
“He needs a rest anyway; he needs a break with his family. He will have a couple of months off and three months to prepare for the Wilder fight.”
Their rematch has emerged as one of the most anticipated heavyweight fights of recent years as a result of their absorbing December contest, which ended in a draw. Fury was knocked down twice but maintains that he should have got the decision, while Wilder is adamant he did enough to win the clash at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
As a result of his performance that night, Fury landed a $100million, 30-month deal with American broadcast behemoths ESPN and made his debut on the channel 13 weeks ago, when he dismantled Tom Schwarz inside two rounds in Las Vegas.
A similarly straight-forward night was expected when Sweden’s Otto Wallin got the call for this, his second consecutive outing on the Strip. But the cut, which came by virtue of a ramrod left hand from Wallin’s southpaw stance, changed everything.
Fury, so often fleet of foot and elusive, was this time forced to dig deep and have what his trainer Ben Davison described as a “dogfight”.
Even so, all three judges had him as a clear winner with scorecards of 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112 returned.
“If there wasn’t a cut I think he would have stopped him,” Warren added. “I could see there were a few shots missing and that was because of his eyesight. Had he not been cut and stopped him, everyone would have been cheering the place down.
“How many fights have you seen where they’ve let it go on like that? He always entertains. In his second coming he hasn’t been in a boring fight.”
Meanwhile, the man tasked with somehow keeping the cut under control, Jorge Capetillo, is in no doubt as to the severity of Fury’s wound. The Briton’s white, green and red shorts – worn in honour of Mexican Independence weekend – were stained pink and his eyesight was impaired for three-quarters of the fight. Indeed, Wallin hurt Fury in the final round with another left hand, which he was unable to see coming, but the big man managed to regain his composure and make it to the final bell.
“That was probably the worst cut I’ve ever seen in my years of doing cuts,” Capetillo said. “But I knew the capacity of Tyson, I knew his experience and his will to fight, so I knew I had to get it right, put my job on the line and get the work done so he could continue fighting and not get stopped.
“I was surprised that the doctor didn’t stop it because it got really bad. But I was just doing my best to keep it clean and try to prevent the blood from pouring into his eyes.
“Thank God I did that and the doctor gave us the green light so he could perform. We knew that round by round he was going to chop him up.”