Boxing Challenge: Fury finishes off Wilder.

    The undercard for the third and likely final fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder may have disappointed but the main event certainly did not as Fury and Wilder slugged it out into the eleventh round before Fury conclusively finished Wilder with a crunching overhand right that left no doubt on who the better heavyweight is and retain his WBC heavyweight title.

Fury knocked Wilder down in the third and tenth, while Wilder sent Fury to the floor twice in the fourth round and just missed pulling off an amazing upset.

Fury generally controlled most of the action as he did in the first two fights, but Wilder had a few more moments in the third fight and his fourth-round knockdowns had Fury in more trouble than after either of the two knockdowns in the first fight.

My scorecard entering the final round had Fury ahead 94-91.

For Fury, the bigger man did what he did in the second fight, using his size and footwork to wear down Wilder on the inside and in clinches and at the same time move well enough to frustrate the often wild swipes from Wilder.

Wilder was effective in the early rounds when he scored with combinations and was able to stun Fury enough to keep the larger man off balance but by the sixth round, his legs were essentially gone and left Wilder resigned to basically winging the right hand and hoping to clip Fury with a miracle bomb.

Fury appears to be destined next to face Dillian Whyte, the longtime top WBC mandatory contender in what would be a huge fight in England, should Whyte defeat Otto Wallin in their October 30th fight and that's not a guarantee when you consider Wallin's close loss to Fury.

Should Fury defeat Whyte as he will be favored to do (or Wallin should he defeated Whyte), I would imagine he would next face the winner of the Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua rematch sometime next summer to unify Fury's WBC belt with the other three organizations titles held by the winner of the rematch.

As for Wilder, I'm not convinced that at 36 years of age that he might be better suited to consider retirement.

Wilder would have to be rebuilt in order to qualify for a future title shot that would be at least 18 months away at the earliest and while there would be interest in a Wilder-Joshua or even a Wilder-Usyk bout, even after all these years, I think few would be interested in a fourth Wilder-Fury fight.

And with PBC having nothing to with Usyk, Fury, or Joshua, Wilder's best bets could be against former champion Andy Ruiz, Robert Helenius, or Frank Sanchez, both of whom won on the undercard.

Still, Wilder may have proved more with his strong effort and willingness to go out on his shield than in any of his title defenses against mostly soft touches.

I thought the fight was very good at a high level but I didn't think it was the greatest heavyweight title fight of all time as some claimed after the fight.

I would say it's in the middle to back half of the top ten heavyweight title fights in history.

The undercard was thought to be paired with two fights that could be action slugfests and both came up short.

Robert Helenius left no doubt about his second win over Adam Kownacki with a sixth-round battering that left Kownacki with a broken orbital bone.

Kownacki stumbled around and was repeatedly smashed by the taller and longer Helenius before the fight was stopped in the sixth.

I had given Helenius all five rounds before the stoppage.

In a very droll fight between two undefeated heavyweights, PBC's Frank Sanchez won a unanimous decision over Top Rank's Efe Ajagba in a fight that really deserved to be skipped.

Sanchez knocked Ajaaba to one knee in the eighth round for the fight's only highlight.

I had Sanchez a 98-91 winner and looks to be placed against a PBC veteran that has a name or high ranking in the near future.

Part of the reason that this was posted so late as I was waiting to have time to watch "The Battle of Liverpool" that pitted former WBO champion Liam Smith against rising prospect Anthony Fowler in junior middleweight slugfest on a DAZN/Matchroom card.

Smith finished Fowler in the eighth round with a left hook that Fowler got up from but was unable to continue with the referee stopping the bout.

Fowler started fast, winning the first three rounds on my cards and cutting Smith above the left eye in the first round.

Smith began to turn the tide in fourth when he returned the favor to Fowler and scored a knockdown in the fifth and had taken the lead on my card after seven rounds, 67-65.

Smith will stay on the scene with the likelihood of meeting someone in a title eliminator for one of the sanctioning bodies soon while Fowler seems to be more of a European title level veteran rather than a top fifteen style contender.

In the boxing challenge, I scored five points to Ramon Malpica's two to move my lead to 135-116.