Promoter Bob Arum paid Tyson Fury the ultimate compliment. He compared his heavyweight to a former client, Muhammad Ali.
No, Arum wasn’t saying Fury is as good Ali inside the ring, although he does think highly of his Fury’s boxing ability. He was talking about the Englishman’s ability to sell himself.
“He is a promoter’s dream and it reminds me of when I promoted Ali,” Arum told BoxingScene.com. “Ali was such a brilliant self-promoter. … A lot of people would … give me credit for having him say this or that. Of course, I had nothing to do with it.
“It is the same with Tyson fury. The only input I have is to have my staff tell him where he has to be at a certain time. You don’t tell Tyson Fury what to say.”
Arum also believes Fury carries himself well in the ring. And he did mention Ali.
“A little bit of Ali, a little bit of George Foreman,” Arum said. “He blends a lot of the strengths of those guys together, with a little bit of Roberto Duran.”
Arum thinks less of Deontay Wilder, who Fury will face in a rematch on Feb. 22 in Las Vegas. Although Arum gives Wilder credit in one respect.
“I haven’t seen a guy with that one-punch power,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It is actually accentuated by the fact he doesn’t know how to box. He is a horrible boxer. He puts on a clinic of how not to box, but he has that right hand and it is like a laser that will find the most vulnerable part of his opponent’s anatomy.”
We’ll see if it finds a part of Fury’s anatomy.