Jeff Mayweather says he felt Tyson Fury did enough to win a close decision against Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night in their rematch in Riyadh. He thinks that Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) did more than the unified heavyweight champion Usyk (23-0, 12 KOs) in the fight to earn a 12-round decision.
Jeff doesn’t think it was an exciting fight, labeling it as “mediocre.” Usyk won a 12-round unanimous decision with scores of 116-112, 116-112, and 116-112. Fury gave away his chances of winning by doing nothing in the championship rounds when the fight was still up for grabs.
Weight And Performance
The weight that Fury put on slowed him down, making it hard for him to fight as hard as he needed to win. He’d come into the first match looking flabby at 262 lbs but made the situation by bulking up to 281 lbs for the rematch.
Fury was so chunky that he had to pull his trunks up to minimize his stomach and leave a smaller target area for Usyk’s punches.
“The fight was extremely close. It could go either way, but I’ll lean a little bit toward Tyson,” said Jeff Mayweather on his YouTube channel, believing Tyson Fury did enough to deserve the win over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night.
“Every other round, he [Usyk] would do good, but not as much as Tyson did. Usyk is taking over the heavyweights. They’re all getting beat by Usyk. So, probably not,” said Jeff when asked if Fury and Anthony Joshua have a chance of becoming world champions again.
“I don’t think anyone wants to see a third fight [between Fury and Usyk]. The first fight to me was very good. The second fight was mediocre. Neither one of them did too much. Basically, I think, both guys were fighting safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t get the fight. He was fighting too safe.
If Turki Alalashikh wants to set up a trilogy between Fury and Usyk, he can do it. The fans won’t want to see it. With Fury coming off two defeats, it’s not great timing for Turki to match him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against a solid contender to redeem himself and raise his stock.
Turki should tell Fury that if he wants to get the retirement payday against Joshua, he needs to earn it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Let him walk through fire first to get that big mega-payday.
Fury’s Cautious Approach
“He didn’t take enough risks. I don’t think so. Everybody is getting beaten by a cruiserweight,” said Mayweather when asked if Joshua, Fury, and Daniel Dubois could hang with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, and Mike Tyson.”
Fury looked afraid of getting hurt in the rematch with Usyk last Saturday, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. He didn’t want to get knocked out. So, he played it safe, went through the motions, and got his $75 million payday without putting his hide at risk.
It wouldn’t end well for Fury, Joshua, or Dubois to go up against a prime Lewis, Foreman, or Mike Tyson. If there was a way of teleporting them back when those guys were young, it would be interesting to see, but none of them would do well against those kinds of fighters. Fury would be the most vulnerable of the three because he can’t punch, and his movement or mauling wouldn’t work.
“I don’t think so,” said Mayweather about whether Fury can be considered an all-time great. “Some people might think so. I really like Tyson Fury, and I think he’s extremely talented for a guy his size. But if you get beat twice by a cruiserweight, you can’t say a whole lot about that. I think he’s [Fury] a Hall of Famer.”
Fury is definitely NOT a Hall of Famer, and, of course, not an all-time great. He didn’t beat anyone other than an old 40-ish Wladimir Klitschko, who was beyond shot, and Deontay Wilder. We’ve seen how good he is with his recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. Those defeats took the shine away from Fury’s victories over Deontay as he struggled against him.
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