Tyson Fury’s career as a major player will be on the line tonight in his rematch with three-belt heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
Usyk can put the 36-year-old former WBC heavyweight champion Fury out to pasture as he appears to be naturally done with his appearance. Tyson’s behavior was strange, signaling that his loss to Uyk last May had gotten the best of him.
The explosion of the era
Fury looks worn and it’s not just from hard training. This fight and the mental torture he faced for the past seven months has pushed him to a dead end age explosion. That’s where a person suddenly ages quickly. Fury has clearly moved on from his loss to Usyk.
Accelerated aging usually occurs in the 40s and 60s, but can begin earlier if a person experiences a high degree of stress.
Fury’s Career Survival
“Gypsy King” needs the win tonight to not only put himself in position for a trilogy with Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) if that’s the direction he chooses to go, but also to generate interest in a mega money British clash with Anthony Joshua.
The worst possible scenario would be for Fury to get plowed by Usyk tonight, get knocked out, and then enter the fight against Joshua, who is coming off a knockout loss. Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) looked terrible, lost his last fight and had to be saved by the referee in the ninth round.
What I want to know is who will Fury blame after Usyk does him tonight. An obvious autumnal would be his coach, SugarHill Stewardwho masterminded his victory over Deontay Wilder with the game plan. Regardless, SugarHill should have been dropped after Fury’s controversial win over Francis Ngannou last year. Tyson actually lost this fight, but was saved by the judges in Riyadh.
What was obvious was that SugarHill’s game plan built around mauling wasn’t working and he was out of ideas. It was a one trick pony. I don’t know why Fury kept him after that probably throwing him on the spot.
Fury has looked poor in his fights since his one big win in nine years and it’s clear SugarHill has no idea how to improve him other than using the tired strategy he devised for the Deontay clash. Fury has repeatedly used this strategy in his fights against journeymen Dillian Whyte, Dereck Chisora ​​and 0-0 rookie Francis Ngannou.
If things don’t go well tonight for Fury, he might give SugarHill and Andy Lee the royal boot. Then he can tell the media that he’s going with a whole new team. The fans would ignore it and Fury’s loss to Usyk tonight would be partially clean.
Matchmaking Magic
The reality is Fury isn’t that good, and never was. He was always just a fighter who overcame matchmaking, living off his victory over the washed-up 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko. Fury got a LOT of mileage out of beating up an older, aggressive guy who had already been knocked out in two rounds by Corrie Sanders before he fought him.
Apart from that one win, Fury didn’t beat anyone and was always a step above the Brit’s level, but his promoters matched him carefully to avoid guys who would have exposed him to the limelight of mediocrity.
