Fury questions what he has left but plans to KO Usyk in rematch
Claims retirement not on mind as it's been many times before. Plus: Usyk contemplates cruiserweight return; Fury-Joshua still looms; weigh-in results; full fight order; special Usyk-Fury show and tell
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Former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has talked about retirement on and off for years and there have been even been those times where he said was indeed retired only to return a short while later.
He famously announced one such retirement in July 2017 while in the throes of his drug and alcohol problems and mental health issues that he so publicly struggled with following his upset decision win over Wladimir Klitschko to win the lineal and unified heavyweight title in 2015.
More recently, Fury went into a lineal/WBC title defense against Dillian Whyte in April 2023 proclaiming it would be his final fight. He drilled Whyte in the sixth round and reiterated after the bout that he was done even if virtually nobody believed him.
Sure enough, “The Gypsy King” soon had a change of heart and was back in the ring 10 months later against former UFC champion Francis Ngannou before losing the title when he got knocked down, nearly stopped and lost a split decision in his historic four-belt unification fight for the undisputed title against Oleksandr Usyk on May 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As Fury gets set to hit the ring in an immediate rematch with Usyk in an effort to avenge his only loss and reclaim the heavyweight throne in a Riyadh Season card on Saturday (DAZN PPV, 11 a.m. ET, $39.95 in U.S., £24.99 in U.K., $19.99 or its local currency equivalent elsewhere) at Kingdom Arena — the same venue as their epic first battle — retirement is apparently the furthest thing from his mind.
“I’ve tried to walk away many times and been unsuccessful,” Fury said recently in an interview on DAZN. “I meant it when I retired after Dillian Whyte back in 2022. I really meant that wholeheartedly. I could have put my hand on the Bible and meant it, but it was difficult to let it go. So I’m not sure if I can ever let it go.”
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Fury comes from a fighting family so, as he has said, boxing is in his blood. There are also the titles, which he has often downplayed but do seem to mean something to him — not to mention the gargantuan money he earns each time he steps in the ring, something he often said drives him. He will reportedly earn at least $50 million for the Usyk rematch and is already well into having earned nine figures in his career.
“What brings me back to the ring? Just the victory and winning the belts. That’s what keeps me going. It’s what I do,” said Fury, who claims that he has taken this training camp so seriously that he has not spoken to his wife, Paris, or any of their children for the past three months to focus only on the fight as he went through training camp in Malta.
Boxing, obviously, is a hard sport but the way Fury sees it, with what he has overcome in his life, fighting in the ring is the easy part.
“I’ve come back from suicide (attempts). I’ve come back from the depths of despair,” Fury said. “So, yeah, to go in there and get paid a ton of money to do a boxing match with some clown or whatever it might be, boxers — it’s child’s play compared to what I’ve had to go through. So, yeah, this boxing thing for me is just a game compared to what I’ve had to go through.”
He claims he will go right at Usyk in an effort to knock him out. Rarely do fighters divulge their game plan ahead of time, but Fury has been the exception. When he had the second of his three championship fights with Deontay Wilder in 2020, Fury had gotten a draw in their first fight, which many believed he won. But instead of sticking with his boxing style for the rematch, he said to anyone who would listen that he had put on additional weight and would walk Wilder down and knock out the massive puncher — and that is exactly what he did in a tremendous performance.
Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs), of England, has said similar things about his approach to the rematch with Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs), 37, a southpaw from Ukraine, who is a crafty southpaw and one of the best technicians the in the sport. In other words, he is the opposite of Wilder.
While Fury said he will indeed go right after Usyk — and he did add nearly 20 pounds for Saturday’s rematch, perhaps lending credence to what he has said — there does seem to be some self doubt if he can again summon a performance like had in that Wilder rematch or even how dominant he was in the first half of the fight with Usyk in May.
“Not sure. He may have evaporated, who knows,” Fury said when asked if he could still find that version of himself. “Legs might be gone, chin might be gone. Boxing ability might be shot. We’ll find out on (Saturday). That’s why you have to tune into the pay-per-view on DAZN. Come and see if the old dancing master still got it or not.”
At 36, with well-chronicled past substance abuse issues and with several hard fights through the years, nobody can be sure what Fury has left, which he acknowledged earlier this month.
“I’m not the same guy I was at 21 or 22, but who is,” Fury said. “No one is, I suppose. Muhammad Ali wasn’t. Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson definitely wasn’t. Nobody is. Who is the same man they are at 36 as they was at 26? Nobody, really. So, yeah, all of those fights have a big effect on human beings.
“I remember when I was a young guy in my 20s and I said to Wladimir Klitschko, ‘Look at you, you’re an old man.’ He was 37. I said, ‘You’re old.’ I said, ‘You’ve got gray hairs in your beard.’ I said, ‘It’s a young man’s game.’ Now I’m in that position, I’m in that boat.
“Sometimes when fighters lose a fight, they can never win another one when that bubble’s been burst. They’re never the same. I’ve seen it many times. We’ll find out Saturday night (about me), won’t we?”
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, Fury’s 93-year-old co-promoter, who made the trip from Las Vegas to Riyadh this week, said he believes Fury can do what he did in the Wilder rematch.
“I’m not only Tyson Fury’s co-promoter, I am also a Tyson Fury fan,” Arum said. “If anyone watched the second Wilder fight, Tyson knew what he had to do and won that fight in a real one-sided way. I’m looking forward to him fighting in that way again, and being successful on Saturday night.
“That being said, he’s fighting a tough, skilled Ukrainian. Personally, like many Americans, I am so proud of his people, how hard they have been fighting and what they have been accomplishing (in the war against Russia). Oleksandr Usyk typifies the strength of Ukraine, but on Saturday night he’s fighting one of the best heavyweights of all time, Tyson Fury. I’m very confident that our man Tyson will emerge victorious.”
Whatever happens, Fury didn’t sound like a man on the verge of yet another retirement announcement even if he fails in his mission to reclaim the title.
“And just for the record,” Fury said. “I’m going to absolutely annihilate this motherfucker on Saturday night. No retirement. I’m cleaning them all out, and he’s going to be the first.”
Back to cruiserweight?
Oleksandr Usyk, who was the undisputed cruiserweight champion before moving up in weight to beat Anthony Joshua to win three of the four major heavyweight titles and then toppled Tyson Fury in May to become the undisputed champion in a second weight class, said he will considering a return to cruiserweight.
He defends the lineal and unified heavyweight title against Fury in their immediate rematch on Saturday but after that, whatever happens, he said another run in the 200-pound division could be in his future.
“I’m trying cruiserweight again,” Usyk said to the U.K.’s Sky Sports this week.
Asked if he was serious, Usyk, known to be a jokester, said indeed he was.
“Yeah, yeah, I try,” Usyk responded.
Usyk turned pro at cruiserweight in 2013, won the WBO title from
Krzysztof Glowacki in 2016, and eventually ran the table in the World Boxing Super Series tournament to become the undisputed champion, beating the best of the division along the way, including Marco Huck, Mairis Briedis and Murat Gassiev.
After one four-belt defense by knockout of former titlist Tony Bellew, Usyk vacated and moved up to heavyweight, where he packed on some pounds and has consistently weighed in the low 220s.
He is 6-0 at heavyweight with fight No. 7 being the Fury rematch. Usyk would have to drop around 20 pounds to fight again at cruiserweight, where lineal/IBF champion Jai Opetaia currently rules the roost and, like Usyk, has aligned with Riyadh Season. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez holds the WBO and WBA belts and had his last fight on a Riyadh Season card on Nov. 16.
Fury-Joshua still a thing
For years, one of the biggest fights in the heavyweight division would be an all-British showdown between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua despite their recent struggles.
There have been efforts to make the fight that failed in recent years but that was before they both aligned with Riyadh Season and starred in its biggest events.
Fury, for his part, believes the fight remains inevitable despite both of them suffering losses in their recent fights and would be “a travesty” if they never fight.
Fury, of course, got knocked down and lost a dramatic split decision and the lineal/WBC title to Oleksandr Usyk in their undisputed championship fight on May 18. They meet again in a rematch for Usyk’s lineal/unified title on Saturday.
Joshua overcame back-to-back losses to Usyk that cost him his three major belts by reeling off four wins in a row in 11 months in 2023 and this year to position himself for another mega fight. But then he suffered a one-sided destruction in a massive fifth-round knockout loss to IBF titlist Daniel Dubois in September.
Still, whatever happens between Fury and Usyk in their rematch, Fury believes a Joshua fight still looms.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s lost one fight or 21, he will never escape ‘The Gypsy King,’” Fury said. “He will always have to fight me. It doesn’t matter if he’s 49, 42, 55 or 65, we will definitely fight. I don’t care if he never wins another fight for 20 years, we will have to fight for the fans of this country (England).”
The weigh-in
Weights from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for Saturday’s card (DAZN PPV, 11 a.m. ET, $39.95): Oleksandr Usyk 226 pounds, Tyson Fury 281 (rematch for Usyk’s lineal/WBC/WBO/WBA heavyweight titles. Note that both fighters weighed in fully clothed and with shoes); Moses Itauma 249.1, Demsey McKean 251.1; Serhii Bohachuk 153.1, Ishmael Davis 153.6 (WBC final junior middleweight eliminator); Johnny Fisher 241.1, David Allen 257.6; Isaac Lowe 125.1, Lee McGregor 125.9; Peter McGrail 129.8, Rhys Edwards 129.1; Daniel Lapin 174.9, Dylan Colin 173.1; Andrii Novytskyi 237, Edgar Ramirez 261.1; Mohammed Alakel 134.1, Joshua Ocampo 133.4.
Usyk-Fury 2 lineup
Heavyweights: Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) vs. Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs), rematch, 12 rounds, for Usyk’s lineal/WBC/WBO/WBA title
Heavyweights: Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) vs. Demsey McKean (22-1, 14 KOs), 10 rounds
Junior middleweights: Serhii Bohachuk (24-2, 23 KOs) vs. Ishmael Davis (13-1, 6 KOs), WBC final eliminator, 12 rounds
Heavyweights: Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs) vs. David Allen (23-6-2, 18 KOs), 10 rounds
Featherweights: Isaac Lowe (25-2-3, 8 KOs) vs. Lee McGregor (14-1-1, 11 KOs), 10 rounds
Junior featherweights: Peter McGrail (10-1, 6 KOs) vs. Rhys Edwards (16-0, 4 KOs), 10 rounds
Light heavyweights: Daniel Lapin (10-0, 4 KOs) vs. Dylan Colin (14-0, 4 KOs), 10 rounds,
Heavyweights: Andrii Novytskyi (13-0, 10 KOs) vs. Edgar Ramirez (10-1-1, 4 KOs), 10 rounds
Junior lightweights: Mohammed Alakel (1-0, 0 KOs) vs. Joshua Ocampo (18-33-5, 6 KOs), 6 rounds
BetUS Boxing Show
If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and picked three bouts on Saturday’s big Riyadh Season card beginning with, of course, the heavyweight championship rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury. The other bouts are a heavyweight clash between Moses Itauma and Demsey McKean and Serhii Bohachuk versus Ishmael Davis, who meet in a WBC final junior middleweight title eliminator. We also took viewer questions and comments and discussed the latest boxing news! Please check out the show here:
Show and tell
With the big fight at hand, the Usyk-Fury rematch on Saturday, here are their rookie cards in my collection. Usyk's is from the 2012 Panini Olympics multi-sport set produced in the run up to that summer’s London Games. Anthony Joshua’s rookie is also in the set. Fury's is from the Seidman Productions ongoing program set and was an insert in the 2018 program from his first fight with Deontay Wilder.
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Excellent coverage! Thanks Dan!
Fury is nuttier than a fruitcake. Would love to be done with him. Hope Usyk finishes what he started.
And while I doubt a return to Crusier is truly in Usyk's future, I'd rather see him in with Opetaia that Zurdo. Jai brings heat, and has more of the attributes AJ utilized in the 2nd Usyk fight where he was most successful; aggression and power.
Hope we get another classic outta these guys today!