British heavyweight veteran Derek Chisora has been campaigning in the division for 17 years now and has probably forgotten more about the fight game than most active fighters will ever know. As the ever-changing landscape of the sports’ glamour division, Chisora has shared his surprising verdict on how fights between the trio at the forefront of the weight-class would play out.
Turki Al-Alshikh’s invasion into the world of boxing has convinced fans that all fights are now possible and as such the heavyweight scene is thriving, with a first undisputed heavyweight title contest of the century hopefully marking a turning point where the best fights are regularly made rather than avoided.
Simultaneously, a resurgence from Anthony Joshua has seen ‘AJ’ being linked to a clash with Tyson Fury once again, after consecutive defeats to Oleksandr Usyk were proved to have not spelt the end of Joshua’s time at the top table, despite the beliefs of many fans shortly after his second defeat to the Ukrainian.
Instead, Joshua’s decision to appoint Ben Davison as his new trainer has paid dividends and the two-time heavyweight conqueror now finds himself bidding for world honours once again, preparing to take on IBF champion Daniel Dubois next weekend.
In an interview with talkSPORT, Derek Chisora explained why he believes Joshua would not only come out on top against long-term rival Fury, but also that he would knockout Usyk in a trilogy contest.
“AJ will knock Fury out in six rounds and he will stop Usyk in round four. I’m telling you now. Because now he has got the right dancing partner, his trainer. That guy hasn’t stopped watching the two tapes of him fighting Usyk. Because he wants that fight badly, he wants the rematch. He wants Usyk to win the fight with Fury.”
“I think the changes he’s made are Ben Davison and the people around him round him now. They’re listening to him, they’re understanding. They’ve gelled now. He was not knocking out his sparring partners and now he’s knocking them out. Because of Ben Davison.”
Meanwhile, as mentioned by ‘Del Boy’, Fury and Usyk are set to go toe-to-toe once again later this year. Regardless of the fact that Chisora believed his good friend to be ‘under-prepared’ for the first encounter, the 40-year-old fan-favourite went on to declare that Usyk will halt ‘The Gypsy King’ this time around.
“I don’t think Tyson was 100%. He had a massive cut. He didn’t spar the way that he wanted to spar and he was under-prepared. He was mucking around for the first four or five rounds because the confidence was not there. I think Usyk stops him this time. Him [Fury] and SugarHill Steward – that relationship is kind of dying down.”
Usyk-Fury II will take place on December 21st in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with the trash talk that is ever-present in a Tyson Fury fight already getting underway.
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