By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
A fitting ending indeed in one of the most electrifying trilogies in boxing history.
All the drama and back-and-forth was put to an end with Tyson “Gypsy King” Fury scoring a huge knockout victory against Deontay “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder to retain his World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship belt.
It was all fireworks from the get-go as Wilder and Fury were eager to face each other and trade blows inside the ring.
A change of strategy for the Wilder camp was evident in the match as they targeted Fury’s mid-section in hopes of slowing him down in the later rounds.
However, Fury was quick to counter Wilder’s strategy as he boxed more efficiently and pressed the attack moving forward.
Using his weight and height advantage, Fury leaned and used his body to cover Wilder’s space, negating him of his reach advantage that was effective in the first two rounds.
The first knockdown of the match came in the third round when Fury caught Wilder with a sweet right. However, the Bronze Bomber came back in the next round and recorded two consecutive knockdowns that stunned the arena.
In the fourth, it seemed like the Gypsy King was badly hurt but luckily, the bell rang right after the count in the second knockdown.
Despite the two knockdowns Fury suffered, he still continued to press the attack and applied pressure that left Wilder gasping for air at the start of the eighth round.
With Wilder exhausted, Fury picked him apart and scored heavily on his raining jabs and left and right straights.
The curtains closed when the 11th round came as Fury caught Wilder with a huge right that put the Bronze Bomber to sleep.
With the win, it is still undecided if Fury will be facing Anthony Joshua or Oleksandr Usyk for heavyweight unification supremacy.
