I’d predicted victory for Oleksandr Usyk over Tyson Fury ahead of their undisputed heavyweight title fight in May.
I was then really surprised with how impressive Fury was when boxing, and dominating Usyk, during the middle rounds. Regardless of Usyk rightly being awarded victory at the final bell, that first fight showed that Fury has the ability and the size to win their rematch on Saturday night. There were times he looked too big and too athletic – and to the extent he made it look easy – for Usyk.
Usyk’s engine, and his will and desire and discipline, transformed what was unfolding in the ninth round. As on other occasions, he refused to lose – I consider him the pound-for-pound number one; he’s a special fighter – and for that reason he has to be the favourite on Saturday, but there’s a way Fury can win.
There’s a chance that second time around Fury will do what he did the second time against Deontay Wilder – fight a physical, ugly fight, attempt to bully Usyk, and take the boxing element out of it. But he outboxed Usyk so well during large periods of the first fight that he doesn’t necessarily need to do that. He can succeed with a combination of those two approaches – being physical with the smaller fighter, and boxing him at the right times.
The devastatingly heavy-handed Wilder’s inability to stop Fury across three fights meant there weren’t many who thought Usyk could hurt him. But we now know that he can – in that ninth round Fury almost got stopped.
Andy Lee, Fury’s assistant trainer, has since told BoxingScene that he believes that a lot of the reason Fury struggled in the second half of that first fight is because he’d not been able to spar consistently throughout his training camp, because of the cut he suffered that forced the postponement of a previous date with Usyk. If that’s true, that would make sense, and there’s cause to believe he could be better on Saturday – assuming that first fight wasn’t one tough fight too many.
Another unknown element entering this fight is that both Fury and Usyk have repeatedly proven capable of learning to read their opponents and making the necessary adjustments to win – we saw Fury improve for rematches with John McDermott and then Wilder – so we can’t be certain who will have benefitted most from those first 12 rounds.
Before that first fight Fury didn’t know he could outbox Usyk – he’s since said how easy he was finding it, which revealed he expected to find boxing him tougher. But he also wouldn’t have believed that the smaller Usyk could hurt him – and Usyk now knows that he can. Both learned important lessons about the other in that first fight.
For me, it’s Fury who benefitted the most. He knows he can succeed by using his jab and being smart. Usyk, on the other hand, has to rely on hurting Fury again – by finishing him, or by another knockdown earning him the decision. If he hadn’t hurt Fury in that ninth round, Fury would have won.
Equally, Usyk fought that night like he was prepared for whichever version of Fury he encountered, so unlike Fury he doesn’t need to make too many changes – even if Fury’s more physical, he’ll be presented with opportunities to hurt him and move around him and create the angles he’ll require to land on the inside. If he’s boxing from the outside, he found his sense of timing before and will know he can find it again.
The Fury I expect to see on Saturday is the Fury who will box, but do so with more discipline. He’ll do much of what he did during the first fight, but with an increased awareness of Usyk targeting his body during the early rounds, and attempt to keep the action at long distance. He’ll also again need to get into his rhythm and have fun like he did during the first fight – that’s a large part of what his style’s about.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Fury still believes – wrongly – that the judges robbed him of victory during that first fight. Even if he doesn’t and he knows that for the first time he lost, he’s incredibly mentally strong.
