Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk rematch makes zero sense, but the Gypsy King has stubbornly decided that’s what he wants.
Fury is demanding a rematch for a fight in October, just five months after being pummeled and needing to be saved by the referee in the ninth round eight days ago on May 18th.
We all saw it, and it wasn’t pretty to watch, seeing Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) getting the stuffing out of him by the unified heavyweight champion Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs).
Even if the rematch is moved to November, the 35-year-old Fury will still be asking a lot of himself to jump back in the ring against the spritely combination puncher Usyk so soon.
A Missed Opportunity for a Golden Goodbye
A second defeat could leave Fury a broken, battered mess and too far gone to be worth putting him in with AJ. It wouldn’t even be sporting to see Fury fighting Anthony Joshua after a second loss to Usyk.
Ideally, Fury should have chosen not to take the rematch and instead faced Anthony Joshua in a cash-out fight in Saudi Arabia, where he would get a boatload of money.
That would have been a sweet retirement payday for Fury against Joshua, which would have been another opportunity for a golden parachute.
It wouldn’t have mattered if Fury lost because it would have been a retirement match for the old Gypsy King.
Instead, Fury has chosen to activate the rematch and take his chances in a second fight against his superior. The Joshua fight will still be there if Fury loses again, but he’ll be in bad shape mentally and perhaps physically after Usyk is through with him in the rematch.
I think Fury is foolish to fight Usyk again because the Ukrainian talent has clearly got his number, and it will only get worse for him in the second fight. Usyk will start where he left off, treating the beginning of the fight like round nine and hoping this time that the referee doesn’t step in to save Fury like last time.
Experts Question October Return
“Forget about who he’s going to fight next. There’s supposed to be a rematch. I can’t believe it’s going to happen in October,” said Teddy Atlas on his YouTube channel, talking about the recently beaten Tyson Fury fighting undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk potentially fighting a rematch in October.
“After what these men have been through physically, but they’ve been through three camps consecutively. The fight was supposed to happen once. It didn’t happen. Tyson Fury got hurt. Then he got cut, and that was the second one.”
The one that will be affected more by the fast October turnaround is Fury, not Usyk because he was the one that was badly hurt in the ninth round, completely out on his feet and saved by the ref.
Coming back in October after that kind of shellacking will be difficult for Fury, and we could likely see the match postponed once or twice on Tyson’s end. Don’t be surprised if sparring leaks spring up, with reports of Fury getting beaten up by his sparring partners.
Of course, there will be denials, but fans will put two and two together when sparring partners are sent home. They’ll believe the rumors when they see Fury with black eyes, cuts, and whatnot.
“I doubt in five months in October; I doubt they can be ready physically to do this again. I can’t believe it. That’s what they’re talking about, and that’s the date on the contract, but contracts are only as good as the ink on the paper, and that ink can be crossed out,” said Atlas.
Revenge or Just Sheer Stupidity?
“He’s going to be motivated, and he’ll watch the fight back and look where the fight went wrong from seven onwards because there was a moment in the sixth where everyone was going, ‘He’s going to stop Usyk in a minute. He’s going to beat him,’” said boxing analyst Gareth A. Davies to iFL TV about how quickly the fortunes changed for Fury in the Usyk fight. “There was that feeling at ringside, and it wasn’t just me. It was many people.
The best bet would be for Fury to swallow his pride, forget about the Usyk rematch, and take the Joshua payday fight instead. This rematch has disaster written all over it for Fury.
“There’s enough in there for him to go again and look at being aggressive. He’s going to have it on his mind now to get revenge,” said Gareth.
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