Boxing has an undisputed heavyweight king following Oleksandr Usyk’s win over Tyson Fury this past Saturday in Riyadh, with the Ukrainian further cementing his Hall of Fame case over 12 rounds of momentum swings and intrigue.
In a sport where the “mega-fights” so rarely live up to the hype, or even come close to doing so, Fury vs. Usyk was deeply refreshing.
Many prognosticators felt the fight had the potential to be a tactical, potentially dull affair going in. Instead, we saw two master craftsmen at the tops of their games, with Usyk starting well, Fury finding the answers, and then Usyk turning the tables back, including a huge ninth-round knockdown where he beat the towering Fury around the ring before the big man finally went down.
With the legacy-defining victory, Usyk (22-0, 14 KO) became boxing’s first undisputed heavyweight champion in the four-belt era, which has been recognized “officially” for about 17 years. While that may be at least partially a marketing tool — there has never needed to be four recognized world titles in the first place — it’s still something nobody else has done. Not Wladimir Klitschko, who was the obvious top dog for many years, and not Tyson Fury, who finally beat Klitschko in 2015. It didn’t happen for Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder, who led the division while Fury was absent between 2015 and 2018.
For Fury (34-1-1, 24 KO), it’s got to be a stinging defeat. Whether he feels he deserved the win or is just saying that, and whatever else you think of his antics, he is a proud man, and you never know how a fighter whose persona has largely been built on always winning will respond to a first defeat.
The expectation is that he will go for the immediate rematch, which was expected going into this fight no matter how it turned out. The clause was in the contract for both men, and neither Usyk nor Fury have anyone better to fight. The “next man up” would be Anthony Joshua, whom Usyk has already beaten twice, and while Fury vs Joshua would be a big grudge match between two longtime press rivals, Fury’s focus will undoubtedly be on getting even with Usyk, and not on the man he’s dismissed as a “bodybuilder” for the entirety of their shared time in the professional ranks.
It was also a terrific fight, leaving a compelling set of questions lingering in the aftermath. Can Usyk, who was just about perfect for enough of the fight last Saturday, but did have real struggles, do it again? Can Fury find another set of answers, or approach the fight differently a second time around, perhaps looking to impose his will earlier and in harsher fashion?
If it does happen, it’s anticipated that Usyk and Fury would rematch in October, though that is tentative. There are obviously no political barriers that will get in the way. The only thing that will prevent this from happening soon enough is one of the fighters opting out.
Boxing asks a lot of its fan base. The sport demands a lot of money just to follow along, and asks its audience to basically help prop up the entire endeavor by acting as a membership-paying “street team” for the business. It’s too rare that the fans are rewarded in turn with what they want and deserve, which is usually quite simple: the best facing the best, in matchups that can truly capture the imagination.
Usyk and Fury proved they’re the two best heavyweights in the world last weekend. Running it back is the right move in every way.
