Usyk vs Fury 2: Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury look to settle their rivalry in heavyweight championship rematch | Boxing news

The length of a beard, kissing a cross, or who won a staredown seem such small issues that arguments about them seem to be nothing more than petty.

But Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury are the two greatest fighting heavyweights in the world today. And when it comes to their rivalry, they want to win on every score.

Fury had never lost as a professional boxer until he faced Usyk in Riyadh earlier this year. The thunderous bout in May decided the first undisputed heavyweight champion in 25 years and the first in the four-belt era.

It was Usyk who won a split but convincing decision and secured his place in the history books.

Fury now wants to regain the WBO, WBC and WBA world titles in their Sky Sports Box Office revenge Saturday night. He wants to show that at the end of the day, there’s no man out there who can beat him, and he wants to extend his own legacy – to establish himself as the undisputed champion of the comeback

So what does beard matter?

The argument was apparently about whether Fury’s full beard could cushion the force of a punch or disrupt the trajectory of a punch. It’s conceivable, but when you consider that Usyk has now bulked up to heavyweight and injured Fury so badly in the first fight that only the ropes in their famous ninth round prevented him from crashing to the canvas, it’s unlikely , that it will be a problem for the great Ukrainian.

The argument is about something more. It’s about Usyk’s team wanting to remove an element from Fury. The Briton has gone into what he describes as “beast mode” for this training camp. His entourage has been reduced, Fury holed up in Malta for his preparations, barely speaking to his wife and family.

This week in Riyadh, dressed in a leather jacket and sporting a beard, Fury has been belligerent and almost unapproachable to those outside his circle. He’s coming for the “war” he threatened at the weigh-in.

He wants to knock Usyk out of the heavyweight division, so he goes back to cruiserweight. “He will have to,” Fury informed Sky Sports. “I’m going to beat him up real bad.”

This version of Tyson Fury, even more menacing than before, should be an improved fighter.

“You’re going to see a better one this time, I think for sure. I definitely think I’ll be better than last time, and I don’t need to be much better because it was a very snap. fight,” he said.

The first match was nicely balanced. Back in May, Fury seemed to revel in heavyweight competition of the highest caliber. Animated for his walk in, he showboated in the ring and insisted that he thrived on the atmosphere.

“I enjoyed the whole match. The occasion. Being in the ring. Great entrance, great entertainment. Overall I thought it was a great performance from myself. Even looking back I thought it was a great performance. I’ve had some good performances and I know I didn’t get the W. But I still thought it was an excellent performance by myself.

The showboating could well have been a mistake. He did it to show how good a boxer he was, to try to counterbalance and confuse Usyk and maybe even to buy himself some space and breathing room.

It was a facade, a trick that Usyk did not fall for. He stuck to his work. Took his equals, also painful for the first half of the fight, and just like he had promised he would, he didn’t leave Fury alone.

But eliminating it, with more enforcement and defensive tightening, could make all the difference. Although the Brit believed it was the best he had boxed in years, he has to make some important adjustments for the rematch.

“Sometimes you look at a fight and I think I didn’t perform well, I could do better next time if I did this, this and that,” Fury said.

“But for the way boxing is, I don’t think I did anything wrong. I thought I did an excellent performance and I know I’ve seen reports saying that Tyson has fallen backwards, he’s on the decline , and this and that, but I did. Don’t show it in that fight if I am.

“I thought it was probably the best performance I’ve had in the last five years. Since Wilder II for sure, and it’s been almost five years.”

It should be disheartening to think that he boxed almost as well as he ever did and yet suffered his first defeat. It shows how good Usyk is. But Fury seemed strangely energized by the challenge of facing him again.

If Usyk’s team wanted to remove the beard, the persona Fury has adopted, from their opponent, then the Briton’s team tried to remove a source of inspiration from their rival.

During the first fight, under intense pressure with the competition heavy and tough, Usyk sat in his corner between rounds, looked up at the sky and kissed a cross.

Usyk told the media this week: “This cross was a gift from the head monk of one of the Greek monasteries where I go. This cross gives me strength and leads me to victory.”

Whether it was the cross that led him or his own spirit, he excelled and charted a path to victory.

Of course, it only takes the wrong camera angle and an unknown object being pressed to a fighter’s lips to fuel the speculation. Therefore, Fury’s team argued that any cross kissed in Usyk’s corner should be taken away for testing to dispel any suspicions.

That may well be a fair point. But that dispute still hinges on one small item, something Usyk wants and something Fury’s side doesn’t want him to have.

These are just the early skirmishes ahead of the championship contest and the game will not be decided on them.

Of course, Usyk has other sources of inspiration. He is a believer, his country’s flag is carried with him, and he is proud to represent his people. The memory of his father, who never lived to see him become world champion, also drives him forward.

“Of course he’s there. It could never be different after all he did for me. But now he comes to me less in my dreams, or he practically doesn’t come at all, because I told him not to,” Usyk said of his father.

“But maybe he will appear closer to the game. But I remember him, I think about him often, I look at his pictures. He is always with me. I think he is still with me, he is sitting somewhere, maybe he’s sitting behind this guy so you can see me better.”

Usyk always stays separate. He is a man who is hard to read, who engages decisively, but always on his terms. Fury likes to trap opponents in psychological games, yet Usyk is the only one who never seems to play.

The Ukrainian strives to improve himself. He revealed some of his thinking when he told Sky Sports: “Life goes in cycles. You either try to live righteously and do the right thing, or you don’t and end up being nobody.

“We’re all flawed, we all have problems. To some degree we’re all evil. But some of us at least try, we reach for something better. For God’s sake. While others don’t even bother.

“I’ll put it this way. A bee doesn’t have to prove to a fly that honey is better than garbage. But the fly will always argue that garbage is better than honey.”

He opens something of himself, but it also feels like the real Usyk is something well hidden behind mysteries.

While the battle of skill, technique and physicality between them can only take place within the allotted 12 rounds of their fights, the battle of wills has stretched from the last fight right up to this one.

It was exemplified in the extraordinarily prolonged stare down that both men were locked into after the final press conference.

It started out intense, it lasted so long it started to feel absurd, and then it stretched even further until it became magnificent again.

You wondered what they saw when they looked at each other. They certainly didn’t see the nervous crowd of men around them, wondering how to intervene, how to separate the two without offending either fighter or triggering an escalation that couldn’t be contained.

They did not see themselves in each other. Both men are completely contrasting characters, although their pride and hostility are underpinned by a rarely articulated respect for their rival.

They can’t have seen the future or Saturday night’s game. If their mind had been somewhere else, eventually it would have been easy for one to turn aside and move on.

Instead, they must have seen only that moment. Suddenly, each had decided that he would not be the one to break, look first, or falter. So they stared, and they will still stare into the image they see of each other from now until the match and as long as it lasts until they see themselves at the end of it.

Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury’s huge heavyweight rematch will be live on Saturday 21 December on Sky Sports Box Office. Book Usyk v Fury 2 now!