Fury vs Kassi wasn’t a particularly eventful headliner at the Coppor Box Arena, London, nor was it the breakout performance Hughie Fury was hoping for. The Heavyweight upstart kept his unbeaten record intact, however, bagging a 7th round Technical Decision which came about thanks to a nasty accidental head clash a couple of rounds earlier.
Official scorecards came in at 69-66, 70-64 and 69-65, while here at BB we had no problems awarding Fury every round. Fury now builds his slate to 20 wins, 10 knockouts, leaving durable record-plumper Kassi with 18 wins, 5 defeats, 1 draw, 10 knockouts.
The 6′ 6″ Fury made good use of his notable size advantage, keeping the six-inch shorter Kassi at bay for the most part of six rounds and loose change. But, even though Fury is just 21-years-old, with his Heavyweight career still in its infancy, most would still agree this was a pretty lacklustre performance. While it’s true Fury exhibited good rhythm and pumped out a strong jab, his close-quarter exchanges – when they did rarely occur – were a little messy.
As for Kassi, his effort was both disappointing and expected; many boxing scribes doubted he would be able to negate Fury’s longer levers, but it would have been good to see a little more caution thrown to the wind. Kassi did come to life briefly following the accidental head butt in the 5th round – which opened up a nasty gash on Fury’s left eye – but Fury had little problems evading his predictable, plodding attacks.
A win is a win, but once again, this was surely not the kind of outcome Fury or promoter Mick Hennessy wanted. After this limp-ish performance, which received plentiful boos from the crowd, it’s hard to say what kind of level Fury is at right now. He’s certainly still growing – which is fine. A world title shot would appear to be a long way off, as would solid acid tests like an Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas, and (without doubt) Amir Mansour.
Chime in with your own verdict on Fury vs Kassi in the comments, and where the young upstart should head to next.
