Lennox Lewis expects Tyson Fury to be better prepared for Oleksandr Usyk

Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis defeated every man he faced – even if that meant fighting some of them twice.

Lewis got revenge on both Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman after he was stopped by both.

Tyson Fury has only lost once in his 36-bout career, to Oleksandr Usyk in May, and they enter a rematch on Saturday at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

If Fury, 36, is to follow in Lewis’ footsteps, he must avenge that loss – and Lewis said that the key to turning around a defeat is in the preparation.

“Let me tell you my mindset in coming into a rematch,” he told BoxingScene. “It is basically, ‘What did I do wrong the first time?’. I’ll be looking at tape and saying, ‘Okay, what could I have done better?’ And for Tyson Fury, what he could have done better is win the first few rounds. 

“He basically was on his toes the first few rounds and I felt he gave those rounds away. And he wasn’t as serious as I’ve seen him in other fights. So, all of a sudden when you lose, all that goes through your mind is like, ‘What can I do that I didn’t do the first time?’ And that’s what’s on his mind – he’s going to improve on his boxing, he’s going to get in better shape. And there was a couple of things holding him back as well.”

Fury has since revealed that, under normal circumstances, he would have postponed the fight in May because he was still worried about the cut he’d suffered in sparring that first caused the fight to be delayed.

The influential fight-broker Turki Alalshikh had threatened Fury with a $10m fine if he postponed it again, and Fury said that as a consequence he hardly sparred for the first fight.

“He [Fury] had a cut from after Francis Ngannou [in training], so when he went back to training camp after that, he wasn’t able to spar like he should have been able to spar because of that cut,” said Lewis, of the wound that initially meant the fight moving from February 17 to May. 

“That cut kind of slowed him down and it made him think, ‘What if I want to look after it before the fight so Usyk doesn’t get an easy shot and it opens up?’.

“And then, all of a sudden, he’s got a cut during the fight and that slows him down mentally and physically. And, you know, I know how people feel when they get a cut. They feel like, ‘Oh, man, it’s like they’re losing’. And when you’ve seen a cut on the other person, that drives you more to go get him because of the blood. You’re focused more on the cut and making it worse.”