Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora came through unscathed on Saturday night to head toward their planned spring showdown.
Fury, facing Joey Abell, then 29-7(28 KO’s), stated before the bout that a southpaw opponent was his “worst nightmare,” but the Mancunian surprisingly looked relaxed in the first round, jabbing away and landing a good straight right near the bell. Things became a tad more difficult as Abell was able to land a right and a left to the head that knocked Fury’s head back. Fury complained to the referee about headbutts and the American was promptly warned. The brash Brit resumed jabbing and eventually stepped forward, but was caught by a right hand which forced him to hold. Abell landed another before the end of the round.
The two boxers came together in a clinch and Fury aimed a punch below the belt, forcing Abell to go down. He was allowed to take some time to recover, and it wasn’t too long before he signalled to the referee that he was okay to continue. But only moments later he was caught by a well timed double jab and a right hand and Abell sank to the canvas. For some reason or another, Fury let go of his mouth piece and spent some time amusingly trying to pick it up from the floor in his corner with his gloves while Abell was attempting to recover. Two more right hands came Abell’s way which forced him down again.
A right of Abell’s own rocked Fury in the fourth, but the same punch came back at him which sent him into now familiar territory, the floor. Abell was brave enough to continue but was down again seconds later, and the fight was declared over.
While it is obvious that Tyson Fury has some major defense issues nobody can deny that he provides great entertainment to the viewing fans and can turn the heat on when it is absolutely necessary.
Fury’s proposed opponent Dereck Chisora had an assignment of his own to complete later on when he faced Kevin Johnson for the WBA and WBO international heavyweight titles.
Chisora was forced to go the twelve round distance with the experienced American, his first twelve rounder since fighting for the world title against Vitali Klitschko in 2012.
Johnson provided plenty to think about as he started to use the jab reasonably well and did his best to stay in the centre of the ring while Chisora expectedly kept chugging forward, landing the occasional good heavy right hand over the top. Johnson went into his shell in the third round, content to only defend as Chisora punched on the inside. Chisora stepped on the gas in the fourth when Johnson complained to the referee about rabbit punching but failed to land anything of note. A well aimed right hand to Johnson’s head in the fifth landed as the American was on the backfoot sent him crashing down. Johnson got up to continue and came back with a decent right uppercut in the sixth.
By the ninth round Chisora must have been winning on activity alone as Johnson, again, failed to throw but managing to avoid the now predictable big right hands that Chisora threw with regularity. The fight followed the same pattern all the way to the final bell and Chisora won a unanimous decision widely on all three scorecards. Scores read 118-109 twice and 118-110 on the final to end what was pretty much a lacklustre contest, largely in part due to Johnson unwilling to engage many times throughout, something his own corner tried to change between rounds but their words seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Earlier on Hughie Fury scored a second round knockout over Matt Greer in what looked to be a very mature performance for the now 13-0 fighter. Fury said after the bout that he prefers to use his boxing skills rather than go for knockouts, the type of comment that is often said by fighters that are normally way ahead of Fury in years. This type of maturity could bode well for him.
Other results of the night are as follows:
Tom Stalker beat Dan Carr on points
Steve Collins Jr drew with Tommy Gifford
Bradley Skeete beat Christopher Sebire on points
Georgie Kean beat Dee Mitchell on points
Frank Buglioni beat Gaetano Nespro by a fifth round KO.
