Tyson Fury said he respects Oleksandr Usyk “as a man, as a fighter” as they head into their pay-per-view bout on May 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
But Fury thinks his not-so-secret advantage will be too great for Usyk to overcome.
Fury is 6-foot-9 and weighs about 270 pounds. Usyk, a former 200-pound champion, is 6-3 and fighting at 233¼ in his last fight. The former is a huge heavy object, the latter is of course a small object.
Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) defeated another heavyweight, Anthony Joshua, in back-to-back bouts in 2021 and 2022 but Fury clearly doesn’t believe that means much.
Tyson Fury says training for his May 18 fight with Oleksandr Usyk has gone well. Nathan Stirk/Getty Images
“When cruiserweights face the big guys, they are often found to be incompetent,” said Fury, using Evander Holyfield’s ill-fated two-fight series with Lennox Lewis as an example. “You can beat the average big guys but you can’t beat the elite big guys, because size really matters. We have a weight division for a reason, and he will be found out when he fights me on May 18th.
“This is my era, my destiny, my era and my generation. Truth.”
Of course, Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) won’t rely solely on his size advantage at Kingdom Arena.
The 35-year-old from England narrowly lost to MMA star and novice fighter Francis Ngannou in October. split decision victory. Fury seems unprepared for the fight.
He joked about being able to beat Usyk even if he was overweight and drank 15 liters of beer before the fight. In reality, though, he seems to be taking this challenge as seriously as any in his career.
He looks as fit as ever more than a month before the fight, which was originally scheduled for February 17 but was postponed when Fury was cut short.
“I’m in great shape,” he said. “I’m having a great training camp and have a good team around me. Everything is going according to plan. I’m working very hard. This time I had my dad (John Fury) at camp so I had a secret weapon.
“We had a full circus so there wasn’t really anything else we could do.”
Fury compared his meeting with Usyk to his fight with 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who Fury easily beat to become heavyweight champion in 2015.
He felt he had no reason to lose to Klitschko because of the future Hall of Famer’s age. He feels the same about his current opponent because of the size difference.
“I said if I can’t beat old Wlad, I’m definitely useless, and I’ll say it again: If I can’t beat Usyk, obviously I’m no good,” Fury said. “That’s your title. If Tyson Fury can’t beat Usyk then Tyson isn’t good at all.
“But if I beat him, I’ll beat another, great, great man. Next Day.”
