We are not too far away now from the fight that could easily have been dubbed ‘Finally!’ – this the historic, four-belt heavyweight unification showdown between rival heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. And while Fury is the favourite to win in most places, former unified cruiserweight king Usyk is not without his supporters who are picking him to get the win.
Far from it, some good boxing brains are picking the naturally smaller man – who said recently that he has been studying Fury “since the beginning of my professional career” – to befuddle Fury, to outbox him, with the southpaw winning a decision.
One of these fine boxing brains belongs to former super middleweight champ and boxing expert George Groves. Groves has been saying for a while now how he is picking Usyk to defeat Fury, and in talking with Grosvenor Sport, Groves broke it down, explaining in more detail why he is picking Usyk to win on February 17th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“I think Usyk wins, I think he’s in better form,” Groves said. “I know people are attacking him a bit for the [Daniel] Dubois performance but I thought he was very, very good. Usyk was in full control and stopped him. Usyk will take Fury out of his comfort zone, Fury’s a big unit and he carries a lot of weight and if Usyk makes him work harder that he used to then it’s going to be a tough night for him. Usyk builds into a fight and each round he cranks it up. I think he’s in better form, I’m going against the natural size of Fury, and I’m picking Usyk. I think he wins quite comfortably.”
Groves sure makes some interesting points, about the respective recent form of the two fighters especially. Fury looked awful last time out, this the close shave against Francis Ngannou, in a fight that has people asking, “did he or did he not train properly for the fight?” While Usyk, who was dropped by “that” shot to the body, or below the belt, depending on your take, did get Dubois out of there in the end in his last fight.
When did Fury last look good against an elite opponent? Maybe you have to go back to his second fight with Deontay Wilder, which was a long time ago. But plenty of people disagree with Groves and they feel Fury took the Ngannou struggle as a wake up call that has sent him into the most intense training camp he has had since going into the Wladimir Klitschko fight of 2015.
If this is the case, Fury, who is so much the bigger man, may give Usyk the hardest fight the Ukrainian has ever had in his career.
It really is a fascinating fight, one that could have had the tag-line ‘Who R U Picking?” But that one, along with ‘Finally!’ has been used before.
Still who are YOU picking to do the business two weeks on Saturday?