Evander Holyfield has questioned why Tyson Fury is fighting MMA star Francis Ngannou instead of Oleksandr Usyk in a contest that would crown the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis.
Like ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield in his day, Usyk is a unified cruiserweight champion who has moved up to claim titles at heavyweight.
Next up he defends them against Daniel Dubois in Poland on August 26 in the hope of keeping a four-belt clash with Fury alive following unsuccessful negotiations earlier this year.
Speaking to KO Artists Sports, Holyfield thinks the fight, should it happen, will be an ‘interesting’ one – but questions why Fury is facing Ngannou instead.
“Why [Fury] ain’t fighting Usyk?”
“Tyson Fury is a good fighter, but Usyk, he’s a slick guy. He’s a slick guy, he moving, and he can take a shot. So the whole big thing is you have to see two people fight to find out what the truth is.”
He was then asked how smaller men deal with bigger men, and was adamant that nobody is going to be faster than Usyk.
“Bigger guys don’t fight better than little guys, that’s it. Little guys are skilful all the time, but big guys are always with the power. It’s different with Tyson Fury.
He’s a big guy but he box real well and he showed he do have some power so he different and he makes this fight different but nobody gonna be faster than Usyk. It will be hard to outbox him, and that may be the difference.”
Holyfield knows better than most what Usyk will need to do to win that match-up, but first he must see off the bullish challenge of Dubois.