George Groves has been casting his mind over the upcoming undisputed fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk and has given a rather bold view as to how he thinks it will go.
Usyk and Fury have been on a collision course for a while and were first meant to fight in February but a cut sustained by Fury in sparring delayed the fight until May 18.
It is the first fight for all four major belts in this division since 1999 and will see the two unbeaten fighters come to blows out in Saudi Arabia.
Fury’s recent fights have not seen him at his best as he struggled to a points win over debutant Francis Ngannou, while Usyk has twice beaten Anthony Joshua on points and then stopped Daniel Dubois back in August.
Groves has been on talkSPORT boxing to discuss the fight and stands by his earlier prediction that Usyk will win.
“Yeah I picked Usyk to beat Fury. I remember when Usyk first moved up to heavyweight, I said he’s a dark horse, don’t write him off. It did seem a bit unfathomable at the time that he’s not going to compete with the Anthony Joshuas or the Tyson Furys at the time, who had maybe just burst back onto the scene and beat Wilder.”
He then compared both fighters’ styles.
“Wisdom is that a good big un beats a good little un but Usyk is an exceptional fighter. In terms of their boxing ability, Usyk is a lot better, his feet are a lot sharper. Fury has a lot of boxing know-how, great boxing IQ, and he’s got that size he has always used to his advantage, but maybe time has caught up with them a bit. And it’s not all off the back of his last fight with Francis Ngannou.
“He was awful but he was certainly underprepared. He looks in better shape now. He’s zoned in, he knows what’s at stake, and maybe the cut will help him as much as Usyk. He needed as much time as possible to prepare for Usyk, he’s had that, and Usyk might be sat around trying to get in the mind-frame thinking this is the biggest fight of my career but wondering is it going to happen?”
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