![]() Steve Cunningham, a former cruiserweight and a far smaller man who had knocked out less than half of his opponents, did the damage in 2013. Two years after Pajkic, Fury was on the canvas again so a worrying pattern was threatening to emerge. The same spirit would allow Fury to defy logic by climbing off the canvas against Deontay Wilder in the 12th round of their first WBC title fight eight years later. “He overcame adversity on that night and showed his championship mentality,” Pajkic told Sky Sports. “I gave myself a scare,” he admitted afterwards. Tellingly Fury weathered the storm and charged right back into the danger zone – in the very next round he floored Pajkic twice and brought up a 17th undefeated fight. ![]() “With the same punch that I dropped him with. I did what I always did – head down, move forwards, swing.” ![]() Guys who study their opponents? I get it. “That fight told me everything I needed to know. “Fury fought a guy I had beaten, Nicolai Firtha. Pajkic won just five of his 18 fights by knockout but had seen Fury caught with a hurtful punch in his previous fight, just two months prior. I wish he hadn’t gone down because the left hook was coming and would have put him out.” The right hand was supposed to be a set-up. “I hoped he would be groggy with the right hand then I would finish him off with the left hook. To my surprise, he fell after the first punch. “I only cracked him with 30 percent,” Pajkic exclusively tells Sky Sports nine years later. The hellacious round ended with Fury absorbing another massive punch and desperately clinging on. Pajkic knocked him down with an overhand right and Fury’s hometown crowd gasped. In the second round of their fight in Manchester, Fury was floored for the first time as a professional. Notably the 22-year-old Fury said: “If Pajkic gives me a hard fight I will retire because if I can’t handle him, I’ll never unify the division.” “He has an ugly face,” Pajkic said at the press conference.įury replied: “I like his hair-cut but when will he get it finished?” Neven Pajkic was the challenger to Fury’s Commonwealth title in 2011 but, more interestingly, he was an early indicator of the engaging and attractive rivalries that the British heavyweight could drum up. He is no stranger to a mid-fight crisis, Fury, despite his 31 undefeated fights but at the time, with the giant heavyweight on the seat of his pants in his hometown, eyes were rolled. The big lesson for the first man to knock Tyson Fury down? “He has a will to come back up”. It was a fight that the young and cocksure Fury chose for himself, an opponent that he chased to Canada and back over a barbaric year, a grudge match he did ultimately win but also one which raised troubling concerns. “I know I introduced him to the canvas,” grins the first man to knock Tyson Fury down, the man who started a chorus of questions about whether the future world heavyweight champion could take a smack.
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