Oleksandr Usyk knows he can hurt the goliath Tyson Fury, and that’s going to make it next impossible for the former WBC heavyweight champion to fight the way he needs to for him to be victorious in their rematch on December 21st at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
The Hitman’s Intent
Usyk won their previous fight by a 12-round split decision on May 18th, but this time, he wants to knock him out, and his whole ‘Hitman’ persona is a message of intent.
Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) has said in interviews that he’s not happy with the way he fought in his loss to unified heavyweight champion Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs), fighting passively with his back against the ropes, showboating, and giving away round.
In the rematch, Fury wants to come forward and attack Usyk with power shots like he did in the early rounds of their first fight. ‘The Gypsy King’ said he wants to come out “Hot” from round one, backing up the smaller man and using his size to score a knockout.
“I’m coming in hot. I can’t wait. Twenty-first of December, the belts are going to be mine again,” said Fury on social media. “I’m going to knock him out.”
Fury’s decision to come in heavier for the rematch will make it difficult for him to fight hard without gassing after four or five rounds, as in the first fight with Usyk. Carrying around 270+ lbs will be difficult for Fury, and Usyk will make things harder for him with the fast pace he sets.
“Usyk is fighting on the front foot all the time, and that is slowing Fury down. Fury is not in control. He is normally in control of fights where he sets the pace,” said Ade Oladipo on his YouTube channel, talking about the rematch between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk on December 21st.
“It isn’t just the pace that caused Tyson Fury so many problems [against Usyk]. It was, ‘This guy is setting a pace, and it’s difficult to keep up with the pace.’ That’s what Usyk did. He set a pace, and eventually, Fury got tired a little bit, hands down, and that was that. Usyk is going to take confidence from the last five or six rounds.”
The way their previous fight ended last time, Fury looked ruined, and he was fortunate not to have been stopped. Usyk had figured him out by the eighth round and battered him in the last quarter of the fight to win a 12-round split decision.
The Gypsy King’s fans point out that he always wins his rematches, but the fighters he’s beaten were three non-world-level guys:
– John McDermott
– Derek Chisora
– Deontay Wilder
The Gypsy King’s Decline
Fury’s loss wounded his self-pride, making him look like an aging, silly, overrated, and pampered fighter who was never as good as his naive fans had thought. Whether you want to agree that Fury is an overrated and pampered fighter or not, there’s no mistaking the fact that he’s aging.
Physically, the 36-year-old looks almost as old as 58-year-old Mike Tyson, and he didn’t perform much better than him. This just shows that chronological age means nothing to people. When a person is letting themselves gain weight in between fights, as Fury has done, it ages them when they’ve got to diet to lose the pounds rapidly.
“Usyk is going to get in there, thinking he can hurt Fury because he does hurt fighters he gets in the ring with, but now we know 100% that he can hurt Fury,” said Ade. “That changes quite a lot. You can’t march forward with your hands down, knowing this guy can knock you out.”
The fact that Usyk can hurt Fury limits much of what Tyson can do to turn things around in the rematch, because he can’t count on using pressure to win.
If Fury tries to walk Usyk down, he’s going to run into a lot of shots. In the first fight, Fury was deterred from coming forward by the body punches that Usyk was hitting him with, and that’s why he retreated to the ropes to protect this sizeable target. With Fury’s midsection even chunkier, it’s going to be an inviting target once again, and that’s going to force him to fight off the ropes like last time.
“Usyk now knows he can knock Fury out, and Fury knows that as well. Tyson Fury does do better in rematches. Wilder in the second fight, who would have predicted that? Chisora is not a world-level fighter, but the times he fought Chisora in a rematch, he completely outclassed him. So, he does get better,” said Ade.
Fury-Usyk scores
– Usyk: 114-113
– Fury: 114-113
– Usyk: 115-112
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