Who're you Gonna Call (It.... )?

Happy new year fight fans. Well, it seems likely that Usyk/Fury will indeed happen this year.  
Having admittedly had a soft spot for the British fighter I now find that he has the irritant effect on me that so many posters have talked about.

There are quite a few reasons to be circumspect with your appreciation of The Gypsy King and I won't trot them out, but the idea that he is deserving of a top ten all time great slot does, ahem, irritate. He has been inactive really for far too long and Wilder is the main attraction on his CV.

Another admission - my gut tells me that Usyk has his number. Common sense tells us that he's too small, he's not got the firepower, and that his style will meet a counterpoint in Fury's herky-jerky malarkey
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But let's hang on for one cotton-picking minute.
Fury 2.0 seems to be relying more on his raw power and less of his reflexes. Can he be hit, cleanly and repeatedly...? Yes as Wallin showed.
Can he fight for three full minutes for twelve rounds? No. Definitely not. And Usyk is a great pressure fighter as well as a great counterer.

Fury likes to fight sluggers whom he can out-think  in the ring and out-psyche outside of it. This is clearly the antithesis of Usyk; in fact, I would go so far as to wager that in the build-up, Tyson is going to lose his cool and become unruffled because he seems pretty out of sorts these days and resents anybody else being acclaimed for the same skillset that he owns. His bluster won't work this time as Usyk can simply blank out all the unecessary hype talk as he always does.
Also he himself has a persona that can un-nerve. He's a genuinely eccentric and enigmatic person who doesn't have much of a difference in his real self and his persona (in my opinion) and this may do to Fury what Steve Collins did to Chris Eubank.
So, yes, my gut tells me that Fury's time is coming to an end with a humiliation against Usyk with a re-match that won't alter anything. I'm of the mind that what Ali did to Liston, Usyk can do to Fury, in that the latter just grew old and had had his day.

I see a twelve round decision to be sure, but with a slow to start Fury losing most of the first six rounds easily, his sporadic connections in the latter rounds not having enough success to knock Usyk out.
That's my tuppence worth anyway !

Usyk can do things no other heavy can. What about if he targets Fury's body? This makes perfect sense because he doesn't have the height to go head hunting as so many heavies do. Fury will always get back up and he's not going to get kayo'd by Usyk.
I can see Fury using spoiling tactics on this one as it seems to me that he is using the dark arts more and more in the latter part of his career to accommodate for his bigger bulk-leaning his weight on to his opponent, rabbit punching and pushing have become staple fare in his last three fights. Will Usyk be as easy to find in the first place? His lateral movement is second to none, he can sidestep beautifully and is no slouch himself when it comes to rubbishing another fighter's vision by pawing away with his jab . I can easily image Usyk getting through to Fury's ribs with repeated doubled up jabs, and then moving away out of range. If both are playing the same game ,then Usyk has a clear advantage by not being the bigger man. When it comes to mobility I give him the edge but as I said previously, Fury's days of hitting and not getting hit must surely be on the wane.

Granted it makes for a very unsatisfying fight but this is the way I see Usyk getting his path to glory.
I guess that after a viewing of Shannon Briggs' encounter with Lennox Lewis, I am becoming more convinced that speed and agility can work wonders against a complacent big guy who is used to bossing it.
Naturally Briggs didn't get the win there- because he couldn't keep it up and Lewis ,like the great he was, went and found a way to win. I believe that Usyk had more of Lewis' boxing brain than Fury does these days.

I would tend to agree with ye there regarding the approach from Usyk. I can see him simply tiring Fury in the first 6 to 8 rounds with his movement and then pick him off in little patches of attack. It will not be a fight to be remembered but he cannot go toe to toe with Fury and that is what Fury wants more than anything.

All that said, Fury is a clever boxer so he will be prepared for this approach as well.

My heart says Usyk but my brain is still saying Fury.

Before christmas i was up for this. Now it's just all a bit meh, i can't even say i think it'll happen contract or no contract.

I think that I saw a tumbleweed roll past !

Happy new year........I think its a mismatch. Usyk is slow at heavy and if Fury is smart enough to come out like he did in Wilder 2 I don't know how Usyk keeps him off....Chisora and Joshua both went the distance.

Size...Reach..Power are all in Fury's corner and he won't be much slower if he is at all...

Joshua is a stiff...Fury isn't..

Fury round 3....or sooner if Usyk freezes. Fury like he did against Wlad will be looking to intimidate him beforehand....However much work Usyk has behind him its amazing how sometimes fighters can freeze.

Whoever refs this one could conceivably make a difference, as Usyk has complained (with some justification at times) that he's been on the end of a lot of dirty and rough stuff since moving up to Heavy as the bigger guys try to offset him. Chisora landed a lot of shots on the top of the legs and back (that's typical of him regardless of the opponent, mind you) and Joshua tried to hook his glove around the back of the head to land some uppercuts once or twice, which Usyk seemed prepared for.

Fury might be a bit less obvious with his dirty work but he ragdolls, leans and puts his opponent in a yoke when the opportunity presents itself. He's going to be at least 40 lb heavier than Usyk, maybe even 50, and if the referee lets a lot of things go Usyk will be at even more of a disadvantage because Fury knows how to fight as the bigger man and make it count in a way Joshua couldn't.

But if it's a referee who's on to Fury constantly (if Fury looks to make it a rough brawl, which isn't guaranteed) and is willing to take points then it might give Usyk a better chance.

Overall though I've always felt that Fury's combination of size, his own talent / versatility and his naturally great engine is just too big a puzzle for Usyk to overcome whatever officials are in place and whichever kind of fight it winds up being. Usyk's a good Heavyweight, very good you could argue after his performances against Joshua, but I still think some people don't realise how much better he (understandably) was as a Cruiser. He's a great fighter, but if he pulls this off against Fury I really would be putting him into the absolute legend category.

Call me a cynic, mind you - but we're getting awfully late into the timeline if this is going to be announced for March / April as we keep being assured it will be.....

Has there been a heavy world title fight worthy of the name that has been signed and delivered within three or four months of negotiations, within the last decade?
Team Fury certainly are as canny a bunch of operators as they come, fair enough, but they're tight as anything as demonstrated with the Whyte negotiations.
As for Team AJ, well for all his proclamations as being a great businesman he basically leaves it all up to Hearn.

We don't want to hear patronising nonsense about fighting for free. Just a bit of old fashioned deal brokering without the ego of the bloomin promoter.
Hope lies with the Ukrainian in this regard.

Sadly, I'm becoming increasingly worried that Fury and his old man's occasional mentions of Ngannou, which are becoming a little more frequent as the Usyk 'deadline' approaches, are their way of planting the seed with the more casual or younger fan bases who will lap up the 'crossover fight' or whatever you want to call it. Prepping us for disappointment with the same tactic they used for the Chisora turkey. "We tried to deliver this but they didn't meet the deadline, and this is the only viable alternative!"

For what it's worth I think Fury will fight Usyk at some stage, he's just happy to fart about, make some easy clownish money and wring any limelight and attention out of whatever's left of his career before he does. Sad that we've reached that point, but all that money and adulation has blunted many a man's competitive edge and ambition before. I think he's in the process of mentally checking out of the sport. Could probably rile himself for one last, very winnable hurrah against Usyk for all the belts - aside from that I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of his career is gimmicky crossover fights, more WWE appearances and some naff short-lived talk show which will be decommissioned after one series.

Suspect he's banking on the fact that Usyk will likely wait around for the fight if needs be, as no other potential fight makes him that kind of money nor gives him the chance at making genuine history. Hopefully he proves me wrong and we get the Usyk confirmation soon....But his career has become a circus act since the Wilder trilogy, so I'm sceptical.