Tyson Fury believes that Oleksandr Usyk’s weight, no matter how light or heavy he comes in, can be used against him if the pair are to ever face off in the ring.
Despite the news that we may be getting a heavyweight battle of Britain to close out the year, there’s still the small matter of crowning an undisputed heavyweight champion in the near future.
It’s no surprise, given his well-known self-assurance, that ‘The Gypsy King’ believes he will annihilate the Ukrainian champion. It’s interesting, however, the conundrum he believes Usyk finds himself in. He went into detail with Radio Rahim from Seconds Out.
“He’s running scared in my opinion. He knows what’s going to happen to him. Should he decide to step in the ring, he will be annihilated. Every weapon the I possess beats Usyk. Usyk’s a smaller guy, but he’s carrying weight, so where he’s like 220 pounds – there’s no heavyweight in the world that’s got more speed or [is] more agile than me – and at 220 he is a heavyweight.
If he drops down to 195, 198, he may have the agile speed against me, however the sheer size and mass of the structure will wear him down. It would be like him having a double decker fridge freezer on top of him and pushing him around the ring for four, five rounds.”
So Fury believes that however Usyk decides to prepare in terms of weight, it’s a lose-lose situation. Come in light and he won’t be able to handle the heavyweight pressure, or put on mass and risk losing that tricky speed that’s helped him to victory 20 times out of 20.
The former undisputed cruiserweight champion was around 220 lbs for both of his fights against Anthony Joshua. Whilst perhaps not as agile as he had been at the lower division, he certainly didn’t look plodding or slow.
In fact, moving up in weight is something he’s handled particularly well, carrying a good amount of pop in his shots and stamina appearing to be no issue.
On the other hand, this would be a fight for Usyk like no other. Fury is a man who knows how to use every bit of his 6 ft 9, 265 lbs frame. It was heavy pressure on Deontay Wilder that helped him wear ‘The Bronze Bomber’ down in his two victories, and he’s clearly confident he can use the same tactics against Usyk.
How Usyk will deal with that in his bid to become undisputed for the second time is one of the many reasons that the fight is so intriguing.