Check out the Bloody Elbow staff’s picks and predictions for Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder 3.
The Bloody Elbow team is unanimous in picking Tyson Fury over Deontay Wilder to defend his WBC heavyweight title on Saturday. Fury and Wilder went to a disputed draw the first time, Fury stopped Wilder in the rematch, and now he’s the favorite in the trilogy.
Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder
Mookie Alexander: I just think the dynamic of this fight is the same. Wilder has a puncher’s chance but an in-shape, focused Fury is a vastly superior boxer who has also proven he can hurt him too. I think Wilder will be better than what we saw in their rematch, but Fury’s jab and size is going to be the difference. Tyson Fury by unanimous decision.
Lucas Bourdon: Wilder always has a puncher’s chance, but Fury has proven over 19 rounds that he can handle him by outboxing on the backfoot or bully him going forward and in the clinch. The second approach has been more effective in defusing Wilder’s power by not giving him any space to launch his right hand and I expect Fury to come in with a similar gameplan to the one he used in the rematch. Wilder has bulked up for the rematch, presumably in an attempt to match Fury on the inside and the clinch but Fury’s dominance there had more to do with his craft than his size advantage. Fury by TKO in the 9th.
Zane Simon: I more or less gotta copy what Lucas said here, which is that we’ve seen enough of this fight to have an excellent view of the dynamic. And that dynamic is one where, round by round Tyson Fury is just a much better boxer than Deontay Wilder, with clean enough and consistent enough defensive skills that while Wilder very much can crack him with his power, his chances to do so are few and far between. Deontay Wilder has the power to beat absolutely anyone with the right shot on the right night (and has consistently done so over his career). But, Fury is just a different animal. Tyson Fury via TKO.
Ram Gilboa: Late starter in the sport, Wilder has gotten considerably better, technically and I believe mentally, since capturing WBC’s heavyweight gold against Bermane Stiverne in 2015. But sure, still, he is mostly the same story: his general level is still years behind that soul detaching right punch; a sluggishly awkward fighting machine designed and built around its awesome cannon; an anomaly that can exist mostly only in heavyweight. While Wilder does use the jab somewhat consistently, it is there solely to set up that (curvy) straight right and that straight right is usually all she wrote.
Now the questions for him and his new crew are whether he continues to rely on that right hand cannon even as he progresses in other areas too, or does he seriously try for the first time, following his first loss and against the same opponent, to evolve and adjust his game. Will doing so prove to be too late now, and only impair what brought him all the way to Fury and flattened the man for 9.5 seconds in their first match. Does Wilder continue the same known right hand story, or try to set it up more, build a little prologue to that punch, maybe some body work, maybe an epilogue in the shape of a left hook. I don’t know. But I think that whatever he tries, born-into-it Fury is a mix of just too big and too good, for him, or frankly anybody in the division right now. Tyson Fury by TKO, round 9.
Staff picking Fury: Lucas, Zane, Dayne, Ram, Stephie, Mookie
Staff picking Wilder:
Staff picking draw: