Plucked from European obscurity, German Tom Schwarz is set to hit the big time as the first opponent of Tyson Fury and a lucrative deal with Top Rank.
The 24 year-old will oppose the lineal heavyweight champion on June 15 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But why was Schwarz chosen?
Well, in a nutshell, Schwarz should be an easy victory for Fury. ‘The Gypsy King’ can look good against the 6ft 5 1/2 inch Schwarz and move on to further fights unscathed.
Following Fury’s two hard knockdowns against Deontay Wilder in December, promoter Bob Arum wants to ease the 30 year-old back in.
Schwarz, despite a 24-0 record with 16 KO’s, hasn’t fought anyone anywhere near the league of Fury. His best win came against forthcoming Derek Chisora opponent Senad Gashi in April of last year.
Gashi has since been stopped in seven rounds by Carlos Takam.
Most notably, Schwarz took three rounds longer than David Allen to get Samir Nebo out of there. Schwarz was pushed six rounds by journeyman Tomas Mrazek. An also-ran opponent stopped in one round by Ian Lewison, three by Nick Webb and Dillian Whyte.
It must be mentioned that Fury was taken six rounds by Mrazek in 2009, also.
Konstantin Airich lasted the full eight rounds with Schwarz. Airich was blasted out in one by Robert Helenius and Manuel Charr.
All in all, the level of Schwarz will never fully be gauged until he steps up in class. But it does look as though Fury is in no danger whatsoever of losing his undefeated record.
Explaining his decision to pitch Fury in with Schwarz, Arum spoke exclusively to WBN on Friday.
“We wanted to get a guy who hadn’t tasted a loss. Tyson is such a big, big guy, we didn’t want to put him in with a small guy and Schwarz is a big, big guy. It will make a really compelling fight.
“He was quite willing to take the fight. The terms were negotiated and the idea that he wanted to and is able to fight Tyson Fury. This was never in doubt,” said Arum.
Ranked 42 in the world by boxrec.com, Schwarz is rated as the fifth best from his native land.
Agit Kabayel, Christian Hammer, Alexander Dimitrenko and Marco Huck are above Schwarz in the Deutschland list.
FORM GUIDE:
TOM SCHWARZ – WWWWWW
March 2019 – Kristijan Krstacic KO2
Nov 2018 – Christian Lewandowski TKO6
Sept 2018 – Julian Fernandez KO2
April 2018 – Senad Gashi DQ6
Feb 2018 – Samir Nebo TKO4
April 2017 – Adnan Redzovic KO2
