Top British heavyweight Tyson Fury is slated to return to action at the London o2 Arena on February 28 as he faces Christian Hammer in a 12-round bout for the WBO’s International Heavyweight title. The line is not up at the books just yet, but this is likely to be another one of those “British Special” lines.
In his last outing, Fury defeated rival Dereck Chisora, receiving a solid payday and a boost in the rankings that has him on World Champion Wladimir Klitschko‘s 2015 radar. The promoter of this match with Hammer is Frank Warren, one of Britain’s top promoters, and he has aspirations of hosting Fury -Klitschko. Warren is going to have to come up with a lucrative and attractive package to lure Klitschko out of his protectorate in Germany, but Warren intends to do just that. Warren is presenting this fight with Hammer to assist in the build up, not to take it all down.
Hammer is a serviceable heavyweight, but Fury has advanced to a level far beyond him and should have no trouble in the fight. Hammer is (17-3) overall and he is coming off a workmanlike 12 round UD win over Brazilian Irineu Costa Junior. Junior was made short work of in his next outing by New Zealand prospect Joseph Parker, so it is not clear how much hammer has progressed since his pair of 2010 losses set his career back.
Warren is not likely to have made a mistake in his matchmaking. He is loading up the card, where there are already nine fights in the works that include a lot of Britain’s top names. Chris Eubank Jr (18-1) will attempt to bounce back from his first defeat when he faces Dmitry Chudinov for an interim WBA World Middleweight title. Lewis Pettit, Bradley Skeete and Frank Buglioni are all additional British prospects who are just once beaten, while undefeated Ahmet Patterson and Liam Walsh are also expecting opponents. Look for many if not all of them to benefit from soft opponents at the hands of Warren.
As if anyone needs to be reminded of Tyson Fury and his bombastic mouth, check this out:
