Sparring partner to Jake Paul, Anthony Taylor blasts former foe Tommy Fury
MMA-turned-boxing star Anthony 'Pretty Boy' Taylor (1-2, 1KO) – Fury's last boxing opponent and Paul's sparring partner – has told Vegas Insider that YouTuber Jake Paul (4-0, 3KOs) will 'dominate' mediocre Tommy Fury (7-0, 4KOs) because he has 'no knockout power or pop'.
The two rivals will clash on December 18 in Tampa, Florida over eight rounds at cruiserweight in a bid to settle their bitter rivalry once and for all.
Ahead of the festive fight, former foe Taylor weighed in on the Briton, claiming his friend and sparring partner Paul will dominate him, calling the half-brother of WBC World heavyweight champion Tyson 'mediocre' and 'green'.
Anthony Taylor: "Tommy Fury has no knockout power or pop, he is a mediocre fighter. Jake is twice as good!"
“Tommy doesn't have power,he doesn't hold power. He has no pop," the former Bellator and BAMMA fighter began. “Think about this: Even though he beat me, he had a hard time with me and I'm 5’6, imagine him going against someone like Jake who is 6’2 and can fight. If he had a hard time with me and I'm 5’6 and was sluggish on the night, what makes him think he is not going to have a hard time with someone who's taller and who has skills?”
He added, "Tommy doesn't have knockout power. I felt every shot he hit me with, I wasn't intimidated. I just kept coming forward. You can obviously tell that Tommy doesn't have a lot of experience with sparring and fighting. On the other hand Jake is actually fighting high class athletes. You know, they might not be boxers, but they are world class athletes.”
'TNT' Fury, 22-years-old Manchester, successfully made his U.S. debut by scoring a four-round shutout over combat sports veteran Taylor In the opening bout of the Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley PPV telecast last August. Already a crossover star after his runner-up finish on the hit U.K. reality TV show “Love Island”, Fury made a positive first impression on the American audience inside the ring but was unable to score the knockout he so craved.
He admitted that he is still learning on the job in the post-fight interview, “You can't forget that I only had 10 amateur fights and my dad wasn't here with me tonight. I'm a novice in this game and I know that I have to work on everything. I'm nowhere near a finished product. I'm learning every single day.”
Fury used his height and reach advantage to land 46% of his power punches on the outspoken Taylor, who was competing in a professional boxing match for the second time in his career and first time since 2017. Fury believed that the lack of a KO in his seventh contest would give his rival added confidence, “Jake Paul should have an easy night against me, right?”
Taylor immediately concurred, “Jake is twice as good as Tommy. Tommy only has that long reach. You take that long reach away and he becomes a mediocre fighter. Tommy is green, Tommy's not anywhere near Jake's level. I get it, people are going to say you're biased because you train with Jake. But I fought Tommy, Tommy doesn't have knockout power.
“When you look at Tyron Woodley, I guarantee you Tyron Woodley can knock out all the opponents that Tommy has fought. Same thing with Ben Askren. Ben Askren was out of his prime but a younger version of Ben would definitely have taken out everybody that Tommy's fought.”
'The Problem Child', from Cleveland, Ohio, has so far defeated all four opponents as a pro boxer, all of them debutants in professional boxing, but none of them with a pure boxing background.
Despite his lack of credible opponents, his countryman believes he has a good boxing skill which he has seen first-hand, “Sparring with Jake, he uses the ring very well. You saw him when he fought Tyrone Woodley, he used every inch of ring. Jake’s patient, he knows when to strike and he knows when to throw power and in his punch. Jake is just an overall better fighter than Tommy.
"Right now, everybody's green, Jake’s green, Tommy's green – you're not going to really see strategically high IQs, but Jake showed some IQ against Tyron Woodley, he had a strategy, as opposed to Tommy when he fought me, there was no IQ. There was just him throwing punches. There was no strategy by Tommy.”
The 32-year-old Californian then gave his prediction for the December 18 fight, schedued for eight-rounds at cruiserweight, “If I had to put my life on the line I’d predict Jake is going to dominate Fury. He might most likely KO Fury, or TKO. When you look at Tommy versus Jake, it's more like Anthony Joshua versus Uysk. Think about it, Jake moves around well using footwork and has good head movement. He moves around like Usyk.
"When you look at Tommy, he's very stationary, like Anthony Joshua. He relies on that one big punch. So that's how the fight's going to be. Don't expect Tommy Fury to be bouncing on his tippy toes, but expect Jake to do that because Jake got a good ring awareness.”
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