Heavyweight champions Tyson Fury & Oleksandr Usyk will reportedly be meeting next February for the four-belt undisputed championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
ESPN reports that the Fury-Usyk fight is being planned for February. Hopefully, neither fighter gets injured, or the fight is pushed into March or April for whatever reasons.
Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) was dinged up a little bit in his business-level fight last Saturday night against MMA fighter Francis Ngannou in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The 35-year-old Fury suffered a black eye and a slight nick on his forehead, but his pride was hurt more than anything. Ngannou exposed Fury, showing that he’s aged and is no longer the fighter that beat Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder.
Boxing fans would probably be more interested in seeing a rematch between Fury and Ngannou than watching Tyson face the much smaller, light-hitting Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) in a fight that will surely be a chess match.
Usyk’s popularity took a big hit when he was dropped by a shot to the midsection in the fifth round of his last fight against Daniel Dubois, and he stayed down for four minutes, trying to catch his breath. He told the referee that he’d been hit low, but it was clearly a punch to the midsection. Usyk should have been knocked out, but the referee ruled it a low blow.
Fury has his own baggage, given that the boxing world saw him losing to Ngannou. As such, the Fury-Usyk fight is a match involving two tainted champions who should be coming off losses.
“Tyson hasn’t been in the ring for a year, and he’s been holding a belt [WBC] hostage. Listen, that’s not his fault, but he hasn’t been defending it. He decided to take this fight [against Francis Ngannou]. A lot of the fans were not happy with what’s going on with him,” said Chris Algieri to ProBoxTV about Tyson Fury choosing to take a money-fight against novice Francis Ngannou rather than defend his WBC title against active contenders or face IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk.
“He’s making reality shows, calling this guy out, that guy out, but doesn’t get in the ring. That kind of stuff hurts your legacy,” said Algieri about Fury. “Even before this fight [with Ngannou] happened, that kind of stuff hurt his legacy. Does this performance mar it, do a degree?
“I never said he was the greatest heavyweight of all time. Right now, I don’t see him beating Lennox Lewis. Lennox Lewis in his prime? No way. Not after what I saw the other night.
“Even though he [Fury] wasn’t in his prime and wasn’t as sharp, I saw something in Tyson Fury. Guys his size gives him trouble. He’d never been in with a guy his size and weight. Wilder was a similar size, but he [Fury] had 50 pounds on the guy.
“In the Klitschko fight, he fought very awkwardly in that fight because he had a guy his size. He had to shoot right across the bow with a guy that was right there in front of him and right there with him, and he had, and he changed his style.
“We saw that with Ngannou. He had a guy that was looking him in the eye. It’s a different thing when you have a guy that is as tall as you, as big as you, and as strong as you. It makes him fight different. Lennox is one of the biggest, tallest, most athletic guys I’ve ever seen. So it makes me think.
“Before, I said, ‘Tyson beats him.’ Now, I think about it. I think I got Lennox in that fight. Only because of this. That’s the nature of this kind of thing. We’re talking about his legacy and we’re talking about your last fight.
“He comes back and beats Usyk in January or whenever and then comes back and fights Ngannou and beats him, then it’s a whole different discussion. That’s why we have these debates.
“We’re all going to question Fury until he gets in the ring, but the problem is, he’s been so inactive that we don’t know when that’s going to be,” said Algieri.
