Tyson Fury’s trainer Ben Davison was furious at the judge that scored the fight for WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder by a 115-111 score last Saturday night, which resulted in the fight being scored as a split draw. Davison points out that Floyd Mayweather Jr., Paulie Malignaggi and Gennady Golovkin all had Fury beating Wilder by a decision.
The judges that worked the fight saw it differently, scoring it 115-111 for Wilder, 114-112 for Fury and 113-113. Since Malignaggi, Golovkin nd Mayweather weren’t the actual judges that worked the fight, it doesn’t matter what they thought. They didn’t have official scorecards for the Wilder-Fury fight, so their opinions are irrelevant. Wilder would have obviously been in trouble if they all were working the fight as judges, but they weren’t.
Davison is convinced that the boxing world all saw Fury as the winner, but that’s obviously his own narrow view of what he’s looking for in taking a look at the opinions of fans. The truth is, many fans saw the fight as a draw, and a lot of them had Deontay winning. Davison’s fighter was knocked down twice in the last four rounds by Wilder, and that’s not how you win a decision. Davison seems to ignoring what happened in the second half of the fight, because Fury was definitely struggling from the power of Wilder. The 12th round knockdown that Wilder scored would have likely been a knockout win for him if a different referee was working the fight. When a fighter gets knocked down like Fury was, the referees stop the fight. Look at the referee that halted the Adonis Stevenson vs. Oleksander Gvozdyk fight in the 11th round. Fury looked worse than Stevenson getting dropped by Wilder, and that fight was stopped on the spot. If the Wilder-Fury fight had the same referee that worked the Gvozdyk vs. Stevenson fight, it likely would have been over with right away. As such, Davison and Fury should be happy that the Wilder fight was permitted to continue after the 12th round knockdown. In a lot of cases, the fight would have ended right there.
“Disgrace. To be honest, that judge, we was weary of it, do you know what I mean? As you would be coming over to foreign soil,” Davison said to Fighthub about the judge that had Wilder winning by a 115-111 score. ’That was a joke and abysmal. Paulie Malignaggi, who I respect, Floyd Mayweather, Gennady Golovkin, Abel Sanchez all had Tyson winning the fight…it was a clearer decision than even (Canelo-Golovkin I). I think with this fight, it was very, very clear,” Davison said.
Davison probably doesn’t want to admit it, but when a fighter in a boxing match gets dropped twice, they should feel grateful if the judges give them a draw. They shouldn’t be indignant, and complain that the decision was a disgrace or that it was a gift decision. Fury is very lucky on two counts. He’s fortunate the fight wasn’t stopped in the 12th round when he was knocked down flat on his back and had his eyes closed, and he’s lucky to have gotten a draw after two knockdowns.
It’s hard for trainers to be objective when it comes to their fighters. Davison needs to not be emotional about it, and look at the fight in a way that the judges did. They saw that Fury was spoiling, not trying to win, and they saw him get knocked down twice in the last four rounds in getting dropped in the 9th and 12th. The judges came to the conclusion that Fury didn’t fight like a winner. He fought like a guy that was just trying to survive for 12 rounds so that he could muddy the water, and say he was robbed, which unfortunately is exactly what happened. When judges see spoiling type of fighters like Fury, it puts them in a position where they need to decide whether to give it to the guy that is just spoiling or to the fighter that is working hard trying to win. If you look at the Wilder-Fury fight, it’s clear that Wilder was doing all the work and Fury was just coming along for the ride.
There was nothing disgraceful about the judge scoring the fight for Wilder by a 115-111 score. Fury didn’t get his offense going until the 6th, and by that point he’d already given away a lot of rounds. The first five rounds were close enough for Wilder to have won all five of them. He looked landed the harder shots, and he was coming forward all the time, and he wasn’t spoiling like Fury was doing. Wilder was trying to win. You can’t underestimate how credit judges give to the fighter that is actually making the fight, trying to land good punches, and not just trying to make his opponent miss the way Fury was doing. The judge that scored it for Wilder 115-111 saw that he was doing all the work, taking the risks and was willing to put it on the line. Fury was trying to make Wilder look bad by dodging his shots, but not throwing anything back at all.
“Tyson’s come back and fought the most dangerous man in world boxing, won the fight, after the journey that he’s been on,” Davison said. “From the lowest of the low to beating the most dangerous man in world boxing. To have it stole away from you like that.”
Nothing was stolen from Fury last Saturday night. He received a draw by the judges. Since they’re the ones that score fights, and not the trainers like Davison, the result didn’t go Fury’s way. If the trainers were allowed to score the fights, then maybe Fury would have won if Davison was the only training scoring it. However, Wilder’s trainer of course would cancel out Davison’s vote for Fury by giving it to Wilder, so nothing would be gained. If Fury wanted to win the fight, then Davison should have trained him better so that he wouldn’t get dropped twice by Wilder. You don’t win fights when you give away the first five rounds by spoiling, and then later in fight you get knocked down twice. Fury fought like a guy that was lucky to get a draw.
Fury is very fortunate not to have been given a loss based on the two knockdowns that he suffered, and the complete lack of offense from him in rounds 1 through 5. Sometimes trainers don’t get what they want. Davison is going to have to live with the decision by the judges. What Davison should do is stop fighting reality, accept the draw, and try and work on fixing Fury’s sloppy fighting style that he exhibited in the last four rounds of the fight. The reason Fury got dropped twice in the championship rounds is because he got tired, lazy and sloppy. Wilder took advantage of a sloppy fighter. You could see clearly that Fury was tired in the last four rounds, and not doing enough to win any of them other just trying to make Wilder miss. That was the only thing Fury was doing. He just trying to make Wilder miss, and getting tagged hard every once in a while when he failed to make him miss.
Wilder has already said that he’ll give Fury a rematch, albeit in the United states. It’s not going to happen in England, according to Wilder. He’ll let Fury have a second bite out of the apple, but it’s going to have to be in the U.S. If Fury doesn’t want that, then he can go in another direction with his career.