Showtime boxing commentator Steve Farhood, who also works as the network's unofficial score keeper, felt Tyson Fury did more than enough to earn a twelve round decision win over WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
The contest, which took place earlier this month, ended in a controversial twelve round split draw at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
One judge scored it 115-111 for Wilder, 114-112 for Fury, and 113-113 for the draw. The two boxers are expected to collide in a highly anticipated rematch in the first half of 2019.
There were some who expected the contest to be boring, with Fury running away for twelve rounds. Others expected Fury, who only had two easy fights since November 2015, to get brutally knocked out in a few rounds.
Instead, fans saw one of the best heavyweight fights in recent years. Fury, who had gone down in the ninth round, was dropped hard for a second time in the twelfth and appeared to be unconscious. Somehow, Fury was able to get to his feet and finished the round strongly.
"I didn’t expect it to be the atmosphere that I experienced there. There were seventeen thousand people there at Staples Center. It started off a little slow then it started to pick up and you got the impression that Wilder needed to do something dramatic to be competitive. The feeling there was sort of a reminder of just how really exciting and how all consuming a great boxing fight can be," Farhood told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"That fight was just fantastic, it was a fantastic finish and it obviously had a controversial decision. What I took away from it more than anything else was that this was a great moment. I’m not a fan of heavyweights generally speaking but when the heavyweights give you a good show, there’s nothing like it. That moment in the twelfth round when Wilder knocked down Fury and Fury looked like he was dead and he got up and finished and won the rest of the round, it was one of the great moments of the year. It was a fight I’ll take with me always, it was very exciting."
As far as the outcome, Farhood feels strongly that Fury should have been the rightful winner of the contest.
He realizes that there were a lot of close rounds, but sees no way that a judge could have scored 115-111 in favor of Wilder.
"I think more people thought that Fury deserved the decision than thought Wilder deserved the decision. I’m not going to go out and call it an utter robbery. I know Paulie Malignaggi thought it was a robbery and couldn’t believe Rochin’s score [of 115-111 for Wilder], but I wouldn’t go that far because there were a lot of rounds where very little happened and I get it if some people scored some of those rounds for Wilder. I definitely thought Fury deserved the decision," Farhood said.
