Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk: B/R Head-to-Toe Breakdown
Maybe, just maybe, we'll have a fight this time.
Though Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk were penciled in to meet last December and officially scheduled in February, they've still not shared anything beyond a press conference.
An eye cut Fury sustained in training snuffed the official date in the winter and delayed until spring—this Saturday in Saudi Arabia, to be specific—the fight that will presumably end with the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999.
Fury will arrive with the WBC title belt he's held since 2020 and defended three times, while Usyk holds the division's other significant jewelry awarded by the IBF, WBA and WBO. He wrested the stash from Anthony Joshua in 2021 and has defended twice, once in a rematch against Joshua and then by ninth-round KO of once-beaten contender Daniel Dubois.
The imminent get-together at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh has the B/R combat team alive with excitement and eager to construct a head-to-toe breakdown in which each man's boxing ability, defense and punching power are considered, along with X-factors.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.
What You Need to Know
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What: Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk
Where: Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
When: Saturday, 2 p.m.
TV: DAZN (pay-per-view), PPV.com
What's at Stake: Undisputed has a nice ring, no?
It's been nearly 25 full years since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield to claim every significant title belt in the heavyweight division, and, given that the British fighter was stripped by one of the mickey-mouse organizations soon after, we've not had another full-fledged king since.
It's a big deal.
And the fact that Saturday's combatants are a combined 55-0-1 with 38 KOs makes it even bigger.
So much so that the money men in Saudi Arabia are putting up nearly $150 million to cover the combined purses for Fury and Usyk, who've already agreed to a second bout in October that'll fold nicely into a subsequent duel with a suddenly resurgent Anthony Joshua.
Happy heavyweight days are here again.
Tyson Fury's Tale of the Tape
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Nickname: Gypsy King
Record: 34-0-1, 24 KOs
Height: 6'9"
Weight: 277.75 pounds*
Reach: 85"
Age: 35
Stance: Orthodox
Rounds: 230
All stats courtesy of Boxrec.
*Official weight at last fight in October 2023.
Oleksandr Usyk's Tale of the Tape
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Nickname: The Cat
Record: 21-0, 14 KOs
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 221 pounds*
Reach: 78"
Age: 37
Stance: Southpaw
Rounds: 177
All stats courtesy of BoxRec.
*Official weight at last fight in August 2023.
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Boxing Ability
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They're both superior boxers. But hardly similar.
Usyk is no shrimp at 6'3" and (in his last fight) 221 pounds, but he's more ballet dancer than bruiser and has risen to the top of his heavyweight neighborhood with a high ring IQ and a sublime skill set, handling even bigger opponents with a heady blend of hand speed, footwork, and precision (albeit not concussive) punching.
It's not impossible to imagine him bedeviling Fury by creating angles, hitting the bigger man with shots of various speeds and using movement to escape prolonged volleys in return.
Fury, meanwhile, can box pretty well when he chooses.
He could use a six-inch height advantage and a seven-inch chasm in reach to stay on the perimeter and keep Usyk at a manageable distance with a hard, educated left jab and appropriate follow-ups with the right. It's not hard to see him cruising to a long-range win.
Advantage: Even
Punching Power
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Neither Fury nor Usyk is mistaken for Mike Tyson or Earnie Shavers. That's not to say they can't punch for power, though.
Usyk's path to violence isn't so much from single hard shots as it is from prolonged volleys of accurate, crisp punches that gradually break down opponents both physically and mentally.
His two defeats of the bigger, stronger Joshua were clinical masterpieces and the Englishman was far closer to a stoppage loss, particularly in the first fight, than Usyk ever was.
The Dubois win was similar, and the bigger but less-skilled man had no answer before ultimately surrendering via the boxing version of death from a thousand cuts.
Fury, on the other hand, seems to be a power puncher when in the mood.
His size and surprising speed can be used as a cudgel when he decides to fight off the front foot and press the action, as he did in the second fight against Deontay Wilder.
In that one, the then-champion was floored twice before being surrendered by his corner in the seventh.
Advantage: Fury
Defensive Ability
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Fury is hardly a sieve when it comes to defense.
He's remarkably quick on his feet for a man of his size and is able to use his length to maintain distance and his girth to grab hold of foes to smother prolonged volleys.
And he recovers remarkably well when he does get hit, as shown by the four times he rose from knockdowns against a murderous puncher like Wilder and the subsequent climb off the deck in the competitive embarrassment that was last fall's duel with Francis Ngannou.
As for Usyk, defense isn't a bonus as much as it's a mandate.
Facing guys with the size and power of Joshua, Dubois and now Fury demands a fighter has the ability to avoid prolonged firefights and being beaten into submission.
Instead, he's got to employ savvy, instinct and sound fundamentals to avoid night-ending shots and try to extend fights into their back halves, where his presumably superior conditioning can become a decisive factor along with his own precise, stinging shots.
So far, so good.
Advantage: Usyk
X-Factors
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Fury's X-Factor: Where's His Head At?
There's no doubt Fury has been a dominant heavyweight champion.
He outclassed titleholders like Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder and squashed pretenders such as Derek Chisora and Dillian Whyte, but the most recent of those wins came more than 17 months ago at the tail end of 2022.
And in the meantime, well...he'd rather not discuss it.
Fury was overweight and barely interested while turning a walkover against Francis Ngannou into a competitive career stain last October, climbing off the floor to win a split decision.
It puts a lot of pressure on him entering the fight with Usyk, against whom an embarrassing loss would yield a permanent legacy dent.
"(Ngannou) was a severe slip-up," former HBO blow-by-blow man Jim Lampley told Bleacher Report. "Doing a goofball TV reality show (At Home with the Furys, streaming on Netflix) is not a good way to stay focused."
Usyk's X-Factor: Does He Have the Tools?
This just in: Tyson Fury is not Anthony Joshua or Daniel Dubois.
So, while Usyk's performances against those big men—winning two wide decisions and scoring a KO—have earned him positive acclaim and led to a near pick'em betting status for Saturday (he's listed +100 at DraftKings), they're not a guaranteed precursor to Fury.
It's one thing to engage with big, raw opponents with limited toolboxes; it's another thing to face a guy with huge height and reach advantages who knows how to use them beyond simply trying to bludgeon a foe into a bloody submission.
Does he have the skills to elude a foe that good and that big? And if he does have the skills, does he have the legs to employ them for all 12 rounds?
Not everyone thinks so.
"Usyk is very good," ex-cruiserweight champ Lawrence Okolie told All Out Fighting, "but a lot of the stuff he does well, I think he will struggle to do against someone with the size and skill level of Fury."
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