What is your assessment of Usyk-Fury II?
Tris Dixon: I had Usyk winning, but I think there were swing rounds and I definitely was not certain he would get the decision. I had him a couple of rounds up but could see how others would come to the same scorecard the other way. It was a good fight, even if it didn’t have the thrills and spills of their first bout.
Kieran Mulvaney: This was the fight that established beyond any doubt that Oleksandr Usyk is the preeminent heavyweight of his generation. For all the talk of Fury’s success at rematches, it’s clear that the more rounds you give Usyk to figure out an opponent, the more dominant he becomes. The last six rounds of the rematch were the clearest in one man’s favor in all 24 that Fury and Usyk have contested. Usyk has an outstanding boxing brain and is remarkably relaxed in the ring, so much so that he appears to strengthen the longer a fight lasts.
Bernard Neequaye: Oleksandr Usyk proved his greatness once again against Tyson Fury, but the fight did not live up to my expectations. Fury, for instance, was slow in most parts of the fight and did not really provide the opposition that I expected of him and that Usyk required of him. I was confident Usyk would stand tall if the fight went the distance, because the Ukrainian to me is a more composed fighter. However, I believe the fight could have been tougher if Fury had presented more stiff opposition.
Matt Christie: It was another close fight that was absorbing from the first bell to the last, though it did lack the excitement of their first encounter. Usyk proved himself to be the best heavyweight of his era and hopefully put this particular rivalry to bed. Though Usyk and Fury turned in excellent performances, the feeling that the end is nigh for both was hard to ignore.
Declan Warrington: I scored a draw – five rounds each, and two even – so I wasn’t at all surprised to see, and can’t object to, Usyk being announced the winner. If it wasn’t as exciting as their first fight, it was similarly high in quality. Fury’s still a very good fighter, and Usyk was once again superb. He’s proven himself, beyond doubt, as not only the finest heavyweight of his generation, but the very finest fighter.
Lucas Ketelle: I had Usyk winning, but the fight did nothing for me. The memory of the fight will be of my friends I was around and my loving girlfriend, not the fight itself.
Elliot Worsell: I expected it to be less interesting and dramatic than the first fight and feel that probably turned out to be true. At its conclusion, I had Usyk winning by a couple of rounds, but I assumed the judges would produce something disputed, possibly even a draw. I was pleasantly surprised therefore when the three men at ringside all delivered the same score.
Owen Lewis: I was impressed at the quality both men maintained into the second half of their 30s. This fight wasn’t as dramatic as their May clash, but you could argue it was fought at a higher level – Usyk did a better job evading uppercuts and Fury avoided the kind of shot that put him on jelly legs in round nine, so both had to find other avenues of success. If anything, I think this fight makes the dramatic violence and momentum swings in the first one more remarkable in hindsight. I got suckered by Fury and his coaches talking about the improvements he could make from fight one, but the reality is that the Fury from rounds three to seven in May might be the best Fury we’ve ever seen, and Fury from the rematch wasn’t far behind. So with that in mind, I don’t think Usyk needed Fury to decline, or even to produce a performance in the rematch that seemed well beyond his capabilities beforehand. He’s just a slightly better heavyweight than Fury.
Jason Langendorf: The rematch went roughly according to expectations, and not terribly different than how the first matchup unfolded. Usyk, despite being the smaller man, yet again proved himself to be the better boxer and superior fighter. The margin may have been narrow enough to give Fury and his acolytes cause to howl otherwise, but both outcomes passed the sniff, eye and any other test administered by an objective judge. As disappointed as that may make Fury, he can take solace in falling to an opponent who can now be categorized as nothing less than an all-time great.
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