DAZN analyst Chris Mannix says the muscle that unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has added to his frame has him looking like an American football linebacker at 223 lbs ahead of his fight against WBC champ Tyson Fury this Saturday night,
The bulk that Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) has added to his frame makes this a much different fight for him against Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) than if the two had met when Oleksandr was weighing 221 lbs like in his last three fights.
Fury’s Missed Opportunity
Fury may have missed his window by failing to fight Usyk when he was lighter, and perhaps too small for him to win.
Now, with Usyk heavier than boxing great Mike Tyson weighed for his fights, he’s got an excellent chance of defeating the 262-lb Fury, who arguably is carrying less usable muscle weight when stripping away that extra pounds he’s carrying in his still chunky midsection.
If Fury loses this fight on Saturday night, he’ll be kicking himself for not pulling the trigger on it years ago when he dismissed Usyk as a middleweight and showed no interest in facing him.
Usyk’s Beast Mode
“Usyk is a tank. Oleksandr Usyk is an absolute tank. That is a man that is [2] 1/2 lbs heavier than his last fight,” said boxing expert Chris Mannix to DAZN, talking about the physical transformation of IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk during Friday’s weigh-in for his contest against WBC champ Tyson Fury.
Usyk is certainly a lot bigger than he was last August when he stopped Daniel Dubois, a bigger puncher than Fury, in nine rounds. If Usyk can knock out a young, fast, and powerful fighter like Dubois, he can do the same thing to Fury.
“I’m impressed that Tyson Fury came in 15 or 16 lbs lighter than he weighed for his last fight. I think that’s exactly what he had to do, but Usyk looked like a middle linebacker out there. He looked like a football player,” said Mannix.
“That man up there, Oleksandr Usyk just grew into the heavyweight division overnight. [221 lbs] without an ounce of fat on his body. That man is a beast. I think there’s pressure on both guys. How many cracks at the undisputed heavyweight championship are you going to get?”
Fury may regret not having fought Usyk when he was slimmer, and less powerful than he is now. With the added muscle that Usyk has put in combined with technical boxing skills, it makes him a much different type of fighter, adding another dimension to his game.
“I guess you could lean on there being more pressure on Tyson Fury because there’s probably a crazy group of people that believe he backed out of that last fight [against Usyk last February] on purpose, that he’s not ready, and he’s no longer the fighter that he used to be. The Francis Ngannou fight took something out of him,” said Mannix.
“Look, Tyson Fury has beat back his skeptics his entire career. He beat back the skeptics who said, ‘You can’t beat Wladimir Klitschko. You’re not in his class.’ He outpoints Wladimir Klitschko. He beat back the skeptics that said, ‘You’re almost 400 lbs. You’ll never make it back.’ He made it all the way back,” said Mannix.
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