It goes to show it's easy to float like a butterfly when you have Fred Kassi chasing you round the ring. I'll admit I got sucked into the hype by back foot boxing and the adjustments he made following the Parker defeat. In reality that only takes you to a certain level. Most surprising to see Hughie gassed in there after round 8, mouth open, hands low, punch output decreases. He was no where near conditioned for a 12 round fight and this wasn't against an inactive 37 year old! Cost me a decent return on an acca too but got to feel sorry for poor old Mick, the can't pay, we'll take it away boys will there next week.
Hughie was exposed against Parker. Pulev is a level above, and beat Chisora comprehensively too. Hughie needs to bulk up, he's skinny as ****. Not going to beat every fighter on points. Especially with that negative style.
Just goes to show...don't always listen to the critics. They all told him to stop moving. He did and he's worse off for it. Tbf pulev was good tonight compared to his last few showings. He's a proven fighter. Great amateur I believe. Tonight showed to compete you have to be a proper athlete. Fury was tired in there. Probably from trying to keep the solider man off. Needs to bang on about two or three stone....and learn to fight with the extra weight. Still think he's better off for tonights fight tho. No ones really beating him up. He's competing with these guys....just coming off second best. But nothing else for it but to work at it and make the sacrifices needed to really compete. Its either give up or.....go to that next level. Last night will show him what's needed. There's no way of getting that till you face it. All about learning from it now. They,ve went too far the other way after parker. No movement tonight....pulev probably too experienced to get caught with it anyway. But two or three stone on fury would have made a big difference. Their training him like its any other division but the heavyweight division. Best advice would be too pack the weight on. And learn when to switch up from defence and offence. Tonight he looked like a man caught between styles. Took the critics onboard a little too much. Still got a chance to do something....needs to get bigger and stronger first and foremost tho.
The fight showed Pulev is a level above Parker. I had Hughie winning the Parker fight. Hughie is a top 20 heavyweight, but not a top 10 heavyweight.
Fury Fanboys were so desperate to see Hughie as the second coming that they were blinded to his many inadequacies but wouldn’t tolerate any dissenting voices. Will they listen this time? Doubt it.
Hughie was awful but I think Peter has underperformed here too. Looks like he overtrained Hughie, who was completely flat and exhausted early on. We know Hughie usually has good stamina and looks light on his toes. He was the opposite tonight. Post fight Peter said he told Hughie he needs to go for the stoppage after getting the cut. In hindsight that was a very bad call because the cut held up for twelve and Hughie never looked comfortable going for broke. He gassed doing so and didn't recover. He took far too many shots when he didn't need to. I can't believe how sloppy he looked. The right hand was telegraphed and wild. His shot selection was very limited. He was slow, had poor technique. The list goes on. He didn't look prepared properly and it was the worst version of Hughie we've seen. He was much better in the Parker fight for example. It's a long road back now. I rate Peter but he's going stale with Hughie at the moment. They need to freshen things up somehow. At 24 he's still got potential but he's deteriorating. Is Peter a bit too old school?
Pulev made him look like that. The truth is pulevs no joke. He's a proven fighter and looked back to form tonite. Great learning fight for Huey at 24 years old. Sometimes guys go straight to the top...sometimes guys never get near the top....and sometimes people need to struggle their way to the top. Fury is one of them bottom two categories. He needs changes to get there. But at 24 losing narrowly to parker and being competitive enough with pulev...he's still in with a shout. They desperately need to get him bigger and stronger tho to have any kind of chance. Also need to take a step back and give him that euro/fringe world level he kind of missed out on. He's not doing too badly tho for 24 years of age with about two years struggling with illness. He can come again from tonite. Needs a step back tho. Looked inexperienced for that level tonight. Needs to learn to mix up his offence with his defence much better. They,be not learned after parker. They need to learn what's needed after pulev tho. Get two stone of muscle on him and get back to euro level. It,ll give him a chance. Without that he won't go much further.
Needs to go back to a defensive, counter punching style. That's his forte. He was so close to beating Parker. There was no need to completely change the approach, he just needed to improve a little at what he was good at. Let the hands go a little more. There were just a few things wrong with his performance in the Parker fight. Tonight, everything was wrong including stamina, shot selection, accuracy and technique. That's deterioration.
I don’t see why everyone is surprised it was obvious Pulev was going to dominate Hughie. We found out where Hughie is against Parker. The only reason people are cutting him so much slack and overrating him is because of his age & relation to Tyson Fury. He is 24 so what. You don’t magically go up levels from 24 to 28. If he was 28 you just be filing him under “not elite, will never be elite top 20” and moving on.
Hughie 1 - Acne 0 Good win there, i used to gag seeing Hughie on the screen in HD Hughie's boxing career - 0 try someting else 1 - showed he isn't anywhere near world class