After a mesmerising initial encounter back in May, Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury will face each other for a second time this year on Saturday – live on DAZN Pay-Per-View - with Usyk’s WBA, WBC and WBO belts on the line.
In their historic first ‘Undisputed’ fight, Usyk 22-0 (14) scored a decisive ninth-round knockdown on his way to a split-decision win, becoming the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era.
So for Fury now the task is clear. Avenge the only loss on his professional record and become a three-time heavyweight world champion. Sounds easy, right?
Yet given how gruelling – if technically brilliant - that first fight was, we know it will not be.
Usyk is a fistic genius who will be wanting to put an exclamation mark next to his own name as the best heavyweight on the planet by winning again.
There is also the suspicion that Fury’s best years have been and gone, and the concern that at the age of 36 he will not be able to go to the well again.
Yet have we really seen the best days of ‘The Gypsy King’?
The argument that he is still operating at or near the peak of his powers could be based on how brilliantly he performed in that first fight, and the fact that said fight was only a matter of months ago.
He only lost on a split but was excellent for long spells, and Fury on the front foot, putting combinations together, gave Usyk real problems. Those are facts, and so it is clear he still possesses what legendary boxing writer Hugh McIlvanney might describe as ‘the stuff’.
He controlled the fight between round three and round six, and you can only give major props to the way Fury regrouped after that horrific ninth round.
He kept attacking with a ferocity that belied his dwindling physical condition, which is at odds with any suggestion he is damaged good or that he does not have the engine or the testicular fortitude for combat at this level anymore.
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Due to his dimensions and physicality, Fury is never going to be winning many body beautiful contests, but he fought at a hot pace for 12 hard rounds with an all-time great in that first fight.
The loss to Usyk was Fury's first in 16 years and flips his record to 34 wins, one defeat and one draw as a result. 16 years is a long time, and it has been a rollercoaster ride for Fury.
Not just the fights and the training camps but also the very public battles with depression, cocaine and alcohol abuse. Indeed, given where he was in 2016, it is amazing – and to his eternal credit – that he is still competing at this level in 2024.
He has his faults, but a depth of humanity and largeness of spirit characterises Fury, and he is a fighter people can relate to and pull for.
The harsh reality however is that fighter’s generally do not start improving at the age of 36 and there must be a physical price to pay for years and years spent taking heavy shots to head and body from seriously big men in sparring and in world title fights.
Pinpointing Fury’s absolute peak is no easy task.
Some fans insist he never looked better than he did the night he first won the heavyweight title – with his uncle Peter Fury in his corner - against the hulking Wladimir Klitschko in Duesseldorf in 2015.
Fury was just 27 when he became only Britain's fifth bona fide heavyweight world champion after Bob Fitzsimmons, Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno and David Haye.
In recent years some boxing revisionists have attempted to denigrate Fury’s effort in Germany, but he clearly outboxed Ukrainian Klitschko, whose nine-year reign as champion was brought to an end by a challenger he simply could not work out.
Whatever the critics might say, Fury put in one of the great performances by a British fighter abroad that night.
The Wilder years have taken their toll
Move things forward to 2020 and Fury produced the most destructive and violent display of his whole career to end Deontay Wilder's five-year reign as WBC heavyweight world champion.
His in-fighting display that night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas was quite breathtaking, as he got rid of Wilder via heavy handed seventh-round TKO in what was his first fight with SugarHill Steward in his corner.
There was a third dance with Wilder in 2021, a fight where Fury ended up on the floor twice in the fourth before winning via KO in round 11, and there is a school of thought that subscribes to the view that Fury has not been the same since the Deontay Wilder trilogy.
Those were brutal fights, the type that can take years of a fighter’s career.
Look at the career of Wilder himself since that trilogy. A facile blowout of Robert Helenius followed by back-to-back defeats to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang, and as we reach the end of 2024 one wonders whether we have seen the last of ‘The Bronze Bomber’?
However, to say Fury has been a shadow of his former self since the Wilder wars would be disingenuous.
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That is largely because Tyson was absolutely brilliant at Wembley in 2022 when he annihilated Dillian Whyte, and that performance came after the final Wilder fight in 2021.
The timing still seems to be there, and the high boxing IQ remains, but what about Fury’s punch resistance?
MMA star Francis Ngannou – a boxing debutant – dropped Fury in the third round of their crossover fight in 2023.
Then last time out Team Fury could not have had any complaints at all if the referee had jumped in during the ninth round against Usyk when ‘The Gypsy King’ was lurching around the ring with his senses scrambled.
This rematch might come down to who learned the most from the first fight, but just as importantly who has less miles on the clock.
Fury has boxed 242 rounds as a professional, compared to Usyk’s 189. Yes, Usyk had a longer – and certainly more distinguished amateur career – but as a pro the Ukrainian must be regarded as the fresher man.
The rematch will be intriguing, and while there is no doubt that at the age of 36 Fury must be considered a fighter on the slide, the fact he only lost a split to a generational talent - and pushed him closer than anyone had previously – rules out any notion that Fury is a shadow of his former self and so all outcomes are still possible at the Kingdom Arena.
Watch Usyk vs. Fury 2 on DAZN PPV
The Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury rematch and full undercard is a DAZN Pay-Per-View (PPV) worldwide event and will cost £24.99 in the UK / $39.95 in the US. For prices in your region click here.
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