Back in May, Oleksandr Usyk handed Tyson Fury a first career defeat as he achieved his goal of becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion with a legendary performance. Now, the Brit seeks to level the scores in the rematch and he has now revealed that he has watched their first encounter back around a hundred times.
Both men put their undefeated records on the line when the heavyweight duo met earlier this year, and it seemed as thought it was ‘The Gypsy King’ who would come out on top after he was cruising to victory during the mid-rounds.
However, the eighth and ninth rounds proved pivotal for the Ukrainian technician, as Usyk somehow managed to turn the tide and assume control of the contest in the nick of time to reverse the scorecards and claim a famous split-decision win.
Since suffering the defeat, Fury has admitted that he feels as though he took his eye off of the ball during his first fight against Usyk and feels confident that a more focussed approach in the rematch will be enough to achieve redemption.
In an interview with Queensberry Promotions, Tyson Fury shared that he has watched his undisputed heavyweight title bout back around a hundred times, but maintained that he was relatively unbothered by the razor-thin split-decision defeat.
“I have watched it a thousand times, well probably not a thousand but maybe a hundred times.”
“I thought it was a very good fight. I thought that I did fantastic, I thought Usyk did fantastic, it was what it was. It is just someone’s opinion isn’t it, who won the fight, because like we see in a lot of these fights recently, especially in fights that people think are close, some people might have one man winning it and some might have the other man winning it.
“I think that I won, he thinks that he won. I have seen him doing his view where he says ‘I thought I won it by a point’, one of the judges had me up by a point and one of the judges had him up by a point.
“It is an opinionated thing if it goes the distance and that is what you have got to deal with. If something goes the distance, then you are relying on three people’s opinions, and they might not all see it the same.”
“I was happy. I didn’t get the decision that I wanted, I didn’t get the victory but I didn’t take it out of the judges hands so I had left it to someone’s opinion and it went against me. Am I going to cry about spilt milk? No. Have I cried about it at all? No.”
Usyk-Fury II will take place on December 21st at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with yesterday’s press conference kickstarting the excitement ahead of another blockbuster event in the Middle East.
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