By Eóin Kennedy
The long-awaited showdown between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last Saturday night certainly didn’t disappoint. Usyk ultimately relieved Fury of his status as a heavyweight world champion, after a fight that was absorbing for the twelve rounds of boxing. Both fighters signed a bilateral rematch clause meaning that Fury will get an immediate crack at redemption, but after an historic night of boxing, let’s look at some of the big takeaways that we can discuss ahead of the second fight.
Fury’s Legs Gone?
Throughout his career Fury has demonstrated incredible powers of recovery. His Phoenix rising from the ash’s moment in his first fight with Deontay Wilder is already an iconic boxing image, and he would need to use his amazing recovery ability in the last fight of that trilogy also, in a fight where both men delivered and endured horrendous punishment. Whenever Fury has been in trouble in the past, he’s always been able to somehow bank on the fact that his legs would remain strong and sturdy underneath him. The ability to bounce away from danger on the tips of his toes has made the giant heavyweight an anomaly among his peers. A heavyweight should not be able to move the way Fury does, or did, perhaps. Usyk told Fury in the build-up to the fight that he was not going to leave him alone inside the ring, and the Ukrainian lived up to his word. He tirelessly followed and harassed Fury around the ring, and even in the rounds that the Englishman was winning, Usyk was making him work hard for every ounce of success. After the knockdown in the ninth round, it was the first time in his career where Fury still looked unsteady after the referee’s eight count. The bell came at the perfect time and Fury eventually did recover his composure, but after a long and grueling career, perhaps Tyson Fury has lost some the footspeed and strength that he once possessed?
Chaos in the Corner
One philosophy that seems to be universally held in boxing is that there needs to be one definitive voice in the corner in between rounds, and that voice is usually that of the trainers. ‘Sugar Hill’ Steward was the man kneeling in front of Fury in between rounds, but some observers have pointed out that Andy Lee and Fury’s father, John, were both giving instructions in addition to Steward, and that this was unsettling for Fury. Former boxers Dave Allen and Spencer Oliver, and former UFC world champion, Michael Bisping, all remarked that there was an overload of contradictory information being flung at the fighter in between rounds. Steward and Fury have enjoyed immense success together since teaming up, and even transformed Fury’s style for the second and third Wilder fights so don’t expect Fury to turn on his coach after one defeat, but he will need to put some order in his corner going forward. Lee is the assistant to Steward and is a respected up and coming coach along with being a former Olympian and middleweight world champion as a fighter. There’s no doubt Lee knows what he’s talking about, but nevertheless, if ‘Sugar Hill’ Steward is the number one trainer in camp then his voice should be the only one the fighter hears between rounds. As for John Fury, well, he head butted a member of Team Usyk earlier in the week and was just as chaotic in his son’s corner on Saturday night. His manic screaming is understandable given the emotions involved but emotions are exactly what are to be tempered in such precious moments during a fight. The one minute in between rounds is a chance for a trainer to calm their fighter down and advise them on how the fight is going. Fury said afterwards that his corner had told him that he was winning the fight coming into the final rounds and that altered how he fought. ‘Sugar Hill’ Steward and Andy Lee are great boxing minds, and John Fury undoubtedly wants the best for his son, but heading into the rematch Tyson Fury may want to examine whether there are too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to his corner on fight night.
What Does This Mean for The Division?
The two-way rematch clause meant that we’d be seeing Usyk and Fury run it back immediately, regardless of the result, but does this fight have deeper ramifications for the heavyweight division? The most glamourous potential fight in boxing’s glamour division has long been touted as being Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua, but in this sport every loss causes a hit to your stock market value. Fury currently holds no belts and is no longer undefeated. The perception of a Fury vs Joshua fight, should it ever happen, will be decided by what happens in their next fights. Fury will fight Usyk again and should he win he’ll be boxing’s biggest attraction once more. If he loses, we may never see the Gypsy King fight again, and if he does, he’ll be past his best doing so. Joshua looks likely to next be facing the winner of the upcoming IBF world title fight between Filip Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois. Joshua’s circumstances are pretty much a copy and paste of Fury’s. A loss to Hrgovic or Dubois may or may not signal the end for AJ, but in addition to the Andy Ruiz and Usyk defeats, he’d certainly be soldiering on as a less valuable commodity than he was before. Usyk? Well, regardless of what happens in the rematch with Fury he’ll always be able to say he came up from cruiserweight and beat established champions in Joshua(twice) and Fury at least once. The only fight that Usyk would even need to consider to undoubtedly rubberstamp himself as king of this era, should he beat Fury again, would be against Deontay Wilder. Wilder was the other dominant champion in this generation of heavyweight boxers but coming off a loss to Joseph Parker and with a tough assignment approaching in a few weeks against Zhilei Zhang, Wilder may not even be a relevant player in the not too distant future. Who knows? What we do is that this cohort of heavyweights are coming into their final stanzas and for now, Usyk stands alone as the king of the giants, but that’s still subject to change.
