Frank Warren, promoter for heavyweight contender Tyson Fury, believes the two knockdowns in the first meeting with Deontay Wilder will give his boxer the psychological edge in their rematch.
The first contest, which took place in December 2018, ended in a controversial twelve round split draw.
Fury went down in rounds nine and twelve, with the second knockdown dropping the Brit like a ton of bricks. He appeared to be out cold and got up just in time to beat the count.
The rematch takes place on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
While most believe the knockdowns will have Wilder being more cautious, Warren believes they will create some doubt in Wilder's mind.
"The knockdowns in the first fight will have more of a psychological impact on Wilder, because he’ll be thinking ‘how am I going to stop this fella from controlling the fight?’ The only way to do it is to let those bombs go. Because he’s not going to out-jab Tyson and he’s not going to out-box him, so what’s he going to do?," Warren told PA Sport.
“He’s got to let his shots go. And when he does let his shots go – and yes, they come from unorthodox angles – he leaves himself open and vulnerable to the counter.”
There is some concern with Fury changing his head trainer just last month. He decided to drop Ben Davison, trainer for the last five fights, and hired SugarHill Steward.
Warren is not worried about that move.
“I haven’t seen him training because I’ve been in the UK and Tyson has been in America but when I speak to him he sounds good,” Warren said.
“But if you think about it, when he went with Ben everybody asked ‘Ben who?’ because he had no track record of training any top-quality fighters.
“Everyone said ‘this is madness, Tyson shouldn’t be trained by him’ but he actually did very well. Tyson is a student of boxing, he knows the sport backwards and he also knows SugarHill from years ago. He decided that SugarHill could bring something effective to his weaponry and that’s why he took him on.
“Tyson is no fool. He knows what he’s doing. He’s in a very good place at the moment. And in boxing, of course you want to be fit and you want to be well-conditioned and whatever. And Tyson is that. But the most important thing is to be mentally on the money – and that’s where Tyson is at the moment.”