There are question marks about whether Tyson Fury can physically win the rematch with Oleksandr Usyk on December 21st. Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) is getting a second chance after losing to Usyk by a 12-round split decision earlier this year on May 18th.
Fury was full of excuses after that loss, and he clearly didn’t want to take the high road by showing class by praising Usyk.
Tyson’s Excuses:
– Lack of sparring
– Complacency
– Judges’ bias: Giving Usyk the victory because of the war
Supposedly, Fury has fixed the mistakes he made in the first fight and will come up with a better game plan to knock out Usyk. However, this doesn’t sound realistic because he’s not young enough or physically equipped to do the job.
Is Fury Physically Capable of Winning?
He’s 36 years old, looking more like someone in his mid-50s, and his body might not let him do the things he needs to do to defeat WBA, WBC, and WBO heavyweight champion Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) in their headliner at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
“My question is, physically, is it there at this age? Sometimes, your mind wants to be there, but your body might not be there,” said Paulie Malignaggi to Probox TV about whether the 36-year-old Tyson Fury is physically capable of defeating Oleksandr Usyk at his age.
“He hasn’t always lived a great life in between fights. So that sort of ages you faster. Let’s see if he can get his mind right and if he can bring the physical part into the ring at this age. In the first part of the fight, Fury was doing a great job.
“Usyk’s response was only a matter of time because he was consistently putting on that mental pressure, cutting off the ring. It was bound to force a mistake at a certain point. Fury never took advantage by backing up Usyk. He let Usyk continually back him up, cut him off, and make him feel that strain and pressure despite the fact that Fury was boxing well,” said Malignaggi.
Fury routinely lets his weight get out of hand between fights and then has to trim off the pounds in camp. Nothing has changed in that respect. Fury gained a bunch of weight since his last fight against Usyk on May 18th, and he STILL hasn’t taken the pounds off.
With only one month to go before the rematch, Fury looks like he’s 25 pounds overweight. That ain’t good, but it gives an excuse if he loses again. He can fool himself and the public by blaming the loss on being overweight. By Fury blaming his weight for his defeat, he can shield his ego. He can try and avoid shame by creating an excuse that his fans would believe.
Fury down[laid his loss last time by chalking it up to a brief lapse of concentration. His trainer, SugarHill Steward, used the same line, saying repeatedly that Fury just “got caught,” as if the loss was just from one punch instead of an entire fight. Fury should have dumped Sugarhill once he heard him talking like that, but he didn’t, and he may be keeping him around to put the blame on him if he loses the rematch.
Usyk was landing shots to the head and body of Fury in every round. All the rounds were closed until the ninth. That’s when Usyk loaded up on a left hand and hurt Fury with a headshot. He had Fury out on his feet, but the referee stopped him from knocking him out.
“He was constantly having to feel that pressure, that mental anguish. Eventually, it translated into an error, and Usyk turned things around. Maybe Fury will be a little bit more physical in this fight,” said Malignaggi.
Usyk stayed close to Fury, using feints and targeting his breadbasket. The punches to the body is what led to Fury retreating to the ropes in the first round after initially having success. Once Fury started taking punches to the midsection, he immediately retreated to the ropes, and started clowning around to hide that he’d been bothered by the shots.
Very few of Fury’s past opponents have attacked him to the body, and that’s allowed him to have more success than he otherwise would have. Wladimir Klitschko, Deontay Wilder, Dillian Whyte, and Derek Chisora didn’t throw at Fury’s body.
They were headhunting, and he was able to lean back to avoid getting hit. His body was right there, but those fighters have always been headheaters. So, they didn’t take advantage of his body being wide open the way Usyk did.
“I think Fury could make some adjustments like he did against Wilder where he went from the first to the second fight a boxer on the backfoot to a physical guy on the front foot because he was so much bigger. Usyk is not going to go as quietly as Wilder did,” said Malignaggi.
Wilder fought poorly all three times he faced Fury. He let Fury hold and lean on him without making him pay or shoving him away. Usyk, a much smaller and weaker fighter than Wilder, didn’t allow Fury to hold, and he shoved him away when he tried to grab.
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