Fury v Usyk Preview

Now listen, I’m as against the public stoning of journalists as the next guy.

 

But I’ll give the Saudis this: they’re making some big fights.

 

To cap the best six week stretch in recent boxing history, we’re getting a bout to decide the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world for the first time since 1999 between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.

Given Fury’s proclivity for ducking challenges, I suspect that without the bottomless pit of Saudi cash we wouldn’t be getting this fight.

 

Back in 1999 it was Evander Holyfield v Lennox Lewis II in Vegas. Lewis was the bigger man and the natural heavyweight who moved like a smaller man but hit like a truck and had great skills to boot. Holyfield was a one-time undisputed cruiserweight champion who ran out of competition in that division and figured he could match it with the best heavyweights.

 

Sound familiar?

 

In 1999 the bigger Lewis won by a unanimous decision, picking off a game Holyfield with jabs and nicely timed combinations.

 

Will the same play out in Riyadh on Sunday morning Australian time?

 

Let’s start with Tyson Fury.

 

We can only assess Fury for his career after the first Deontay Wilder fight. From Wilder II onwards, Fury has abandoned his feinting, jabbing, moving style for a more dominant style that befits a man his size. 

 

Fury walks forward and uses his length effectively, doing most of his work off a flicking jab then he follows it up with a rear hand punch, be it an uppercut or straight right. Once he throws one of those rear hand punches, he’ll lean on his opponent and use his enormous frame to physically tire the other man.

 

He's a punch and clinch fighter that plays with range beautifully for a man of his size.

 

He also sits down on his punches more than he ever did prior to the cosmetic surgery he did to his style and, while he’s not a one punch knockout artist, he does have more power now than he had years ago.

 

Fury has taken the Kronk gym lessons to heart.

 

He also might be slipping.

 

His last three fights have come against the end of Dillian Whyte, the very end of Derek Chisora, and MMA fighter Francis Ngannou. None of those fights were meant to be particularly competitive, and none were (bar Ngannou), but Fury looked like his lifestyle was catching up to him. He was less crisp in his punching and less clean in his movement. He also looked considerably more tired than he ever had previously.

 

The Ngannou fight, which he clearly treated like a sparring session and did not prepare for, was so grim that I dubbed him the most overrated athlete in the world in the aftermath.

 

Clearly Fury is training far harder for this fight than he did for Ngannou, and he has almost always fought to the level of competition. The question is whether he can summon greatness again, or whether this is one time too many?

 

Usyk, on the other hand, has always been a consummate professional.

 

He’s never punted on a training camp and boxes on his toes for all 12 rounds.

 

He’s a southpaw, light on his feet, keeps his lead right hand active, probing for openings.

He constantly changes levels while staying entirely front foot dominant and then, when he’s comfortable, he attacks like a bigger Lomachenko, generating different, advantageous angles for himself.

 

Usyk defends and attacks all at once.

He bobs his head, stays on the front foot, changes levels all to avoid getting hit, and also to create openings for himself.

 

Given Usyk’s volume, his level of physical fitness, even at 37, is absurd.

 

He’s also one of the most clutch fighters in living memory. He doesn’t pitch shutouts like Floyd Mayweather did, but he has a keen sense of the moment and always wins the biggest rounds. The best example of that is the 10th round of the second Anthony Joshua fight. Usyk was badly buzzed in the 9th and looked as if he might lose the fight.

But in the 10th and thereafter, Usyk put on a clinic. He was frenetic and controlled at the same time, bobbing, weaving, jabbing and then landing his straight left at will.

 

When he needed it, he summoned it, as he has in his entire career.

 

However, he does not have any real power as a heavyweight. Despite mostly demolishing Anthony Joshua over two fights, Usyk was never able to get Joshua out of there. His only KO wins as a heavyweight have been Chazz Witherspoon and Daniel Dubois.

 

In the ring, I don’t expect a particularly visually appealing fight, but I do expect a compelling one. It will probably start slow and pick up toward the end of the bout as the fighters start to up their risk appetite.

 

Both men play with range so brilliantly, but so differently. Fury likes to work and then lean, while Usyk tends to keep himself clean and bob in and out of range and sight.

 

It will be a question of who is able to control the range in the way that they want to control it.

 

The biggest issue for Usyk is that he has shown a level of softness to the body. Both Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois have hit and hurt Usyk to the body in the recent past (though Dubois clearly landed a low blow).

 

If Fury can get to Usyk’s body early, take the wind out of his sails, and maybe even hurt him, it could be a short night. Fury is not a brilliant body puncher by any stretch, but I would be surprised if he didn’t try to the body early.

 

On the other hand, if Usyk can make Fury respect his power early, maybe by landing a clean left hand early in the fight and make himself small and hard to lean on, he might be able to flummox Fury.

 

If Fury stuck searching for Usyk, given his age, size, and style change he may never find the Ukrainian.

He could be stuck boxing a ghost that stings but doesn’t thud.

 

In the end, when you have two fighters as good as these ones, who are as technically accomplished as these two are, size usually tells. It did in Holyfield v Lewis II and it probably will here.

 

However, there is one variable that needs to be considered: the cut.

 

Fury was badly cut over his right eye by an elbow in sparring in February.

 

The gash was significant and meant the fight needed to be postponed from its initially scheduled date of February 17.

 

He sustained that cut, directly over his right eye, just little over three months ago. He sustained virtually the same cut over the same eye in 2019 against Otto Wallin.

 

That’s a lot of scar tissue and not a long time for a cut that big to heal.

 

Indeed, I would bet that the only reason that this fight is happening this weekend and not in July, if at all, is because the Saudis threatened (never good) that if someone pulls out of the May 18 date they have to pay $10 million to the other man.

 

Fury got bullied into taking this fight earlier than he would have otherwise preferred.

 

Tim Tszyu will have taken a full extra month to heal from his cut when he steps in the right against Vergil Ortiz in August than Fury will have taken on Sunday.

 

Usyk is one of the smartest and most accurate boxers in heavyweight history.

 

That cut is a target.

 

His lateral movement could very well confuse Fury and I would be willing to wager that almost every bob, weave, and level change will be in service of laying leather on that right eye.

 

If Usyk can open up that cut, he wins the fight.

 

I’m taking the upset.

 

Prediction: Usyk by split decision.