Unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has posted a fight poster for his rematch against former WBC champ Tyson Fury on December 21st in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Poster: A Symbolic Message
The poster picture shows Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) belting the 36-year-old Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) with a left to the head, which has him looking up in the sky towards distant stars in the Milky Way galaxy, completely out of it.
Fury’s career is viewed as on thin ice going into this match. He looked like an old shell of himself in his twelve-round split decision loss to Usyk in their first fight on May 18th in Riyadh.
Usyk is expected to go for the knockout on December 21st, recognizing that Fury is helpless when he’s throwing sustained combinations. Fury is too slow to handle being bombarded with shots, and he’s a different fighter when he can’t maul like he’d been taught by his trainer, Sugarhill Steward.
The Infamous Ninth Round
Although the judges scored it as close, there should be an asterisk in the record books, given what happened in the infamous ninth round. Usyk was knocking the living daylights out of Fury after hurting him with a scorching left hook to the head.
Out of nowhere, the referee swooped in out of the blue and gave Fury a standing eight count. You don’t see many standing eight counts given in the pro game. That’s more of an amateur boxing type of thing.
What made it all the more bizarre was the timing and, of course, the person it benefited, Fury. Usyk was one punch away from knocking Fury out when the referee shoved him aside to give the big 6’8″ Gypsy King a standing eight count. Without the referee doing that, Usyk would have landed the final punch to send him into orbit.
The judges scored it 114-113 for Fury, with the other two scoring it 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk. You can only imagine the anger that would have erupted if Usyk had lost the fight because fans would look back at the ninth round and view that oddity changing the outcome. It changed the outcome, but thankfully, the right guy won, and it didn’t completely ruin the fight.
Fury’s Age
Fury just turned 36, but he looks like he’s aged in dog years in the last two years. He looks closer to 50 now, and I don’t know what happened to him. It’s as if the age clock has sped up with Fury, giving him the appearance of a person much older than his chronological age. Whatever he’s doing between fights, he needs to stop to help preserve himself in suspended animation.
For Fury to win the rematch on December 21st, he needs to do the following.
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- Come in much lighter: Lose 30 lbs and shoot for 240+ lbs.
- Forget about the mauling: Don’t try this method against Usyk because it didn’t work last time, and it won’t in the rematch.
- Focus on power: Fury must load up on his shots early before his gas tank empties.
- Use movement: In 2015, Fury looked like gold moving around the ring against then 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko.
- Jab more
Oleksandr Usyk has posted the first fight poster for his rematch with Tyson Fury in December 📸
Will it be repeat or revenge in Riyadh? 👀#UsykFury2 | #RiyadhSeason | #BoxingNews | #BoxingHype pic.twitter.com/BQvRV6q6pT
— IFL TV (@IFLTV) August 22, 2024
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