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Mark Kriegel, GAMES
With years of discord between Tyson was angry And Oleksandr Usyk camp — the most recent expression is an ill-fated headbutt which left Fury’s father, John, both bloody and happily angry — I was sorely disappointed to see Fury on his best behavior.
He doesn’t consider three-belt heavyweight champion Usyk a mere middleweight.
Don’t call him a “parasite”, which in English means “parasite”. Not even vowing to take down Usyk anytime soon, because Fury’s famous prediction before the second battle with Deantay Wilder in 2020.
“What will I do?” Fury said. “I’m going to do what I always do: Go out there and find out.”
Sorry, but good manners and restraint don’t make Fury the most exciting heavyweight champion since his namesake, Mike Tyson, and the most exciting since Muhammad Ali. But here he doesn’t play according to the script.
“He has completed his training and so have I,” Fury told ESPN on Zoom from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday (ESPN+ PPV, Noon ET) he will fight Usyk for a chance to become boxing’s first undisputed heavyweight champion in nearly a quarter of a century and the first in the four-belt era. “We’ll find out who was the actor and who was the killer that night. That’s it. Nothing more. No trash talk. The contract is done, the fight continues. There’s nothing left to sell.” . The Battle of the Century sells itself.”
“Fight of the century” is a term of art in boxing. It usually refers to a heavyweight bout that will determine the legal ownership of so-called lineal titles. There have been three such matches in my life, all between undefeated heavyweights: Ali-Frazier (1971), Tyson-Spinks (1988) and now this. Fury has the WBC belt. Usyk has won other events — IBF, WBO and WBA. The winner will become the first undisputed heavyweight champion since April 2000, when Lennox Lewis lost the WBA title, not in the ring, of course, but – after all, this is boxing – in federal court.
Boxing really goes where the heavyweights lead. But while every other sport regularly produces undisputed champions, boxing has increased the dispute – along with a series of forgettable “champions” (John Ruiz, Bermane Stiverne, Samuel Peter, etc.). It is no coincidence that this fallow period for boxing coincided with the rise of the UFC from an outlaw endeavor to hegemony in the world of combat sports. At the end of the day, regardless of your preference — boxing or MMA — it’s not unreasonable to expect a single champion for each division.
However, Fury-Usyk is the rarest fighting style and only one the kind the UFC hasn’t been able to replicate. Since 1997 when Mark Coleman won the first UFC heavyweight championship, the belt has changed hands 22 times. New champions defend their titles on average only once, and many champions do not. Only one heavyweight – Stipe Miocic – can overcome three defenses in a row.
But boxing’s undisputed heavyweight champions – the “Badest Man” category – are not tied to single defenses of a particular decade. They are still considered in dynastic terms. For example, it is said that the Roaring 20s really began in 1919 when Jack Dempsey took down Jess Willard. Likewise, Ali may have only come of age in the 1960s. Although boxing’s great heavyweight champions may have dominated in the previous millennium, their names still resonate: Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson and Sonny Liston.
Not all of them belong to a distinct cultural moment. Some are simply great fighters (think Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis, both horribly underrated).
You could argue that boxing has diminished or has certainly changed. The heavy division would never again be under American protection. But Fury-Usyk brings something never seen before. They are not merely undefeated. They are older, more experienced (or older, depending on how you analyze it) and more technically skilled than any previous heavyweight pair.
Usyk, a 37-year-old southpaw from Ukraine, has evolved from Olympic gold medalist to undisputed cruiserweight champion to three-belt heavyweight champion. It wouldn’t be wrong to describe him as a heavyweight version of Vasiliy Lomachenko, his friend and former Olympic teammate. Even as Usyk gained weight, he maintained masterful control of his striking distance.
“He’s a good fighter with great footwork,” Fury said. “What more does a warrior need?”
Don’t call Usyk small. At 6-foot-3, often weighing a little over 220 pounds, he was about the same size as “Big” George Foreman. when he fought Ali in Zaire, and is bigger than the version of Evander Holyfield, who beat Foreman in 1991. If Usyk is small, it’s only compared to today’s heavyweights — big, strong guys like Anthony Joshua, who he won the belt without much trouble.
“Where is he vulnerable?”
“I’ll talk in his head,” Fury said.
It’s a curious answer, since Usyk and Lomachenko, each developed by Loma’s father, Anatoly, are known for being tough-minded. According to “Papachenko’s” regimen, Usyk’s training preparation still includes a 10 km swim and underwater breath-holding sessions lasting up to 4 minutes and 40 seconds.
Of course, Fury declared unimpressed: “All men can have mental breakdowns.”
This is a topic he knows about, having addressed his own mental health. Not long after Fury defeated Wladimir Klitschko to win his first three heavyweight titles and was declared outright champion in 2015, he began drinking and using drugs. He accelerated his Ferrari up to 190 mph and happened within seconds of driving it onto a bridge. He attributed whatever made Fury abandon his suicidal thoughts and overcome his depression to God. He also became a better, more resilient fighter.
Fury was just 27 years old when he defeated Klitschko, mostly by poking and prodding. Like Usyk, he also has good footwork – but at 6-9 with an unbelievable reach of 85 inches, boxing has never seen a big man move so well . But now, at 35 years old, Fury is heavier, tougher and stronger. He didn’t beat Wilder; he beat him. And if you confuse Fury will face Usyk with the one he fought in a closed “exhibition”. to former UFC champion Francis Ngannou, you’re making a big mistake.
The fury came from a long line of unarmed warriors. His father once told me: “It takes a thousand years to raise my son.”
But like Mike Tyson, Tyson Fury is also a boxer. “I admire all the champions, all the greats,” he said. “I’ve seen it all.”
Among the distinctive personality traits of lineage champions is an ego so strong that it demands comparison, not just with contemporaries but with those beyond time. After all, Ali himself was sick and tired of hearing about Louis and Marciano, who were thinking about calling themselves “the greatest of all time” long before anyone had heard of Floyd Mayweather. And Tyson himself, just 18 years old and about to turn professional, once cried when watching Liston defeat Cleveland Williams.
“I could never beat him,” Tyson said.
“But you’ll never have to,” a friend of mine pointed out. “He died.”
“But I always do,” Tyson said, touching his temple with his index finger. “Up here. Always.”
Forty years later, I asked Fury who he compared himself to, what legends he imagined himself fighting.
“I never compare myself to other men,” he said. “The only man who can beat Tyson Fury is Tyson Fury.”
