This fight will present an interesting challenge for Klitschko as he has never faced someone the size of Tyson Fury. A song, a joke and an ever-present smile, facing the biggest examination of his career, Fury looks like a man who has been leaked the test results.
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Fury is certainly aware of how the oddsmakers see this fight ending up, as OddsShark.com now has Klitschko as a 1-5 favorite. I don’t think so.
“If I get the win there is a guaranteed song”.
Coming into this eagerly anticipated contest, Tyson Fury carries 24 wins, no defeats, 18 knockouts, while veteran Wladimir Klitschko will bring 54 wins, 3 defeats, 53 knockouts to the ring. People are looking forward to it and want to see see what I’m going to sing.
Now the games are over and at 10.15pm, the serious business starts of trying to beat the world’s best heavyweight, who is undefeated in 11 years.
While Klitschko has dominated for almost a decade, Fury believes the Ukrainian has failed to give the title of heavyweight champion the grandeur it deserves.
“I could see him taking it to Klitschko early and knocking him out in the third round”.
The champion, meanwhile, who has reigned for 9½ years, goes into his 20th consecutive title defence at more than 4lb heavier than for his points victory over Bryant Jennings in April.
Many critics state Klitschko is a boring fighter, but the stats seem to suggest otherwise. “I’d love to knock a few of them out”. Klitschko likes to control a fight with his ramrod jab, thrust time and time again in his opponent’s face like a bullfighter’s lance, until they are slowed and he can move in for the kill.
“This is finally the start of championship boxing for me”, he said.
However, while judges can produce some disgustingly-questionable decisions in boxing, there is no fooling the millions of fight fans across the globe – so perhaps a 12-round strategy could work.
Fury is as loud and colourful as Jimmy Nail’s Geordie brickie from the hit 1980s TV show set in this city on the banks of the Rhine.
He said: “Fury’s tactics should be to close the distance, get near to him, rough him up, try and bully him and stick the nut on him if he has to”. It’s strictly business. It’s a fight and may the best man win.
All week Fury’s beaming demeanour has been of a man who is in sole possession of a wondrous secret.
He feels that if a small former cruiserweight like Cunningham was able to put Fury on the canvas, then that is a problem that Fury is going to have in trying to fight at the upper level of the heavyweight division.
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“I have made a bloody fool of myself in there”, he said when reflecting on the bad nights that could so easily have diverted his career down a dead-end route.
