FURY’S BACK IN THE LIGHT
Former champ faces Wilder for chance to unify heavyweight titles vs. Joshua
It’s been years since we’ve known who could claim the title of “baddest man on the planet,” but that’s going to change Saturday night in Los Angeles. “There’s nothing like the heavyweight championship of the world,” Gerry Cooney said. “I mean come on.” Cooney had chances, but he couldn’t get to the top in an era thick with all-time greats. Larry Holmes. Michael Spinks. George Foreman. He knows what it takes and what it means to be king of the sport’s most important division, and he’s the perfect person to explain what’s at stake when the 6-foot-7, 225-pound American Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) meets the 6-foot-9, 260-pound Brit Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs) at Staples Center.
“This is a great championship fight,” Cooney said. “It’s like a semifinal in a heavyweight final four.
“We’re gonna learn a lot, and we’re drawing closer to whoever wins fighting Anthony Joshua to become the man.” A fractured crown
Wilder “is a devastating right-hand puncher,” Cooney said. “He’s one of biggest punchers of all time. You cannot get hit with a Deontay Wilder right hand.”
Fury, meanwhile, “he beat the man who was the man. Can he come back? He lost 100 pounds. I saw him in the gym, he looked fantastic. But he wasn’t in there with Deontay Wilder either.”
Wilder stepped up when Fury stepped away, a three-year absence that shattered an already fractured crown.
Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko, the closet thing boxing has had to an undisputed heavyweight champ since the days of Evander Holyfield.
“The fact of the matter is, the world is a better place when there’s one champion,” Holyfield said. “You’ve got to think, every time the sport was at its biggest, there was one champ. When everybody knows who the champ was.”
Mike Tyson was the champ. He was recognized by the sport’s major sanctioning organizations and the general public. Then Buster Douglas. Then Holyfield.
Then Riddick Bowe. And that’s where it gets tricky. Bowe refused to fight Lennox Lewis and was stripped of one of his championship belts.
The glamour division has been in disarray ever since. Lewis briefly unified the belts when he defeated Holyfield 19 years ago, but a cluster of contracts and clauses ended that reign within months.
Wladimir’s brother Vitali Klitschko was a champ. But they refused to fight each other.
Wladimir Klitschko was the lineal champ, meaning he beat the man who beat the man going all the way back through Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali to the days of John L. Sullivan. But only the most hardcore aficionados could trace those steps.
Plus, the Klitschko brothers looked, talked and fought so much alike, it was like boxing’s version of “The Parent Trap.”
‘We’ve been lacking’
Still, Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, right around the time Vitali retired. Fury had claim to the crown.
“It felt good for a minute,” Fury said. “Then I went into depression afterward. It felt good for about five minutes. Then it was another one bites the dust.”
He disappeared, emerging only occasionally to say something racist, homophobic or sexist. He says he was in a dark place, bingeing on alcohol and cocaine.
“I got on me knees, and I prayed to God for help,” he said. “And he helped me out of the darkness into the light again. And here I am today.”
He’s fit and ready. This is his third fight in six months, but his first against world-class competition.
While Fury was away, Deontay Wilder, the Bronze Bomber, blitzed everyone they put in front of him. He’s got a seven-fight knock-out streak that he could continue against the biggest champion ever to lace on a pair of gloves.
He’s talking about it like it’s already done.
“It’s gonna be a great accomplishment for me,” Wilder said. “This is making me closer to my goals in boxing. To be one champion, one face, one name. The undisputed, undefeated, unified heavyweight champion of the world.”
The United Kingdom’s Anthony Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) awaits. He beat Wladimir Klitschko last year, sending the former champ into retirement. He’s fought three times since, and now he’s waiting for the winner of WilderFury.
Wembley Stadium is booked April, ready for a megafight.
“I’m just greatful that the heavyweight division is coming together. We’ve been lacking,” Cooney said. He knows what it all means. “The heavyweight division is the man,” he said. “That’s the man, right there.” for