Rival world heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk both defended their respective belts this year – Fury twice, Usyk just once. Fury took out British duo Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora, while Usyk repeated his win over British superstar Anthony Joshua.
We are all hoping the two Rival Kings fight each other in 2023. In the meantime, who Impressed you most this year – Fury or Usyk?
Fury, who said before and after the April fight with Whyte that he would “definitely retire,” had an easy night’s work with Whyte, dominating early and then getting the one-punch-one-shove KO in round six. Fury showed again how he is levels above almost all of his heavyweight rivals. The retirement was of course extremely short-lived, with Fury “coming back” to announce a whole bunch of things: how he would fight Anthony Joshua for free, how he would never fight AJ. Fury also floated the idea of him fighting Manuel Charr. Instead, Fury fought his quite needless trilogy fight with old warhorse Chisora, and we all saw what happened on December 3. It was a beating disguised as a tune-up, and the ten awfully one-sided rounds were, well, awful.
34 year old Fury closes out the year at 33-0-1(24).
Usyk had his big rematch with Joshua, and there was some intrigue in the return fight, this in the form of fans wondering if AJ could make the necessary adjustments to defeat the smaller, faster, trickier man. It proved to be a closer fight in August out in Saudi Arabia, and Joshua did push Usyk harder this time. Joshua actually hurt Usyk bad with a body shot in the ninth round of what was a compelling fight. But what did Usyk do in response? He came out harder and faster in the 10th, thus deflating Joshua.
In the end it was a split decision this time (it shouldn’t have been) but Usyk won again. The question that has since been asked is, can Usyk defeat other elite big men aside from Joshua? It was a shame Usyk boxed just the one time in 2022, but we all know the immense pressure, indeed agony the Ukrainian was going through (still is going through) due to the Russian invasion of his country.
Usyk saw out 2022 at 20-0(13).
So, Fury was more active in as much as he boxed two fights, but Usyk fought the better opponent in Joshua. Who impressed you the most this year when it comes to the WBC champ and the unified WBA IBF WBO champion?
Right now, who is the top dog of the heavyweight division?
Fury showed he can fill up big arenas in his two fights, with the Whyte fight getting over 90,000 fans, and with the Chisora mismatch somehow pulling in around 60,000 fans. In terms of star power, Fury is bigger than Usyk, for what this is worth. Fury showed his power in the Whyte fight, while he was basically sharpening tools the expense of poor Chisora in the trilogy affair.
Usyk showed some amazing stuff in the Joshua return; coming on string in that tenth round after having been hurt to the body porivig especially impressive.was nothing short of brilliant against AJ, and what’s more, he may well have held back on his best stuff. Usyk didn’t go for the KO or stoppage win some felt he would do the second time around, but he won clearly (again, forget that split decision verdict).
In short, both rival champions, and with them the heavyweight division, had a decent if not great year, with just three fights between them; but in terms of who had the better, more impressive 2022, my vote goes Usyk’s way. But how about YOU?