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Jeff Mayweather says he thinks Tyson Fury did enough to win a narrow decision against Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night in their rematch in Riyadh. He believes Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) did more than unified heavyweight champion Usyk (23-0, 12 KOs) in the fight to earn a 12-round decision.
Jeff doesn’t think it was an exciting fight, labeling it as “mediocre.” Usyk won in 12 rounds by unanimous decision with scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Fury blew his chances of winning by not taking action in the championship rounds when the fight was still up for grabs.
Weight and performance
The weight Fury put on slowed him down, making it difficult for him to put up as much of a fight as needed to win. He entered the first match looking limp at 262 lbs, but improved by bulking up to 281 lbs for the rematch.
Fury was so stocky that he had to pull his troops up to minimize his belly and leave a smaller target area for Usyk’s shots.
“The fight was extremely close. It could go either way, but I’m going to lean a little bit on Tyson,” Jeff Mayweather said on his YouTube channel, believing Tyson Fury did enough to deserve a victory over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night.
“Every other round, he (Usyk) would be good, but not as good as Tyson. Usyk takes on the heavyweights. Usyk beats them all. So probably not,” said Jeff when asked if Fury and Anthony Joshua have a chance to become world champions again.
“I don’t think anyone wants to see a third fight (between Fury and Usyk). The first fight was very good for me. The second fight was mediocre. Neither of them did too much. Basically, I think they both fought safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t win the fight. He fought too safely.
If Turki Alalashikh wants to set up a trilogy between Fury and Usyk, he can do it. The fans won’t want to see that. With Fury coming off a two-game losing streak, it’s not a very good time for the Turk to match him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against solid opposition to redeem himself and raise his stock.
Turki should tell Fury that if he wants to retire against Joshua, he has to earn it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Be the first to walk through the fire to get that big mega-payday.
Fury’s cautious approach
»He didn’t risk enough. I don’t think so. They’re all beat at cruiserweight,” Mayweather said when asked if Joshua, Fury and Daniel Dubois could hang with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.”
Fury looked as if he was afraid of injury in his rematch with Usyka last Saturday, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. He didn’t want to be knocked out. So he played it safe, went into action and got paid $75 million without putting his skin in danger.
It wouldn’t end well if Fury, Joshua or Dubois went up against the top Lewis, Foreman or Mike Tyson. If there was a way to teleport them when these guys were young, it would be interesting to see, but none of them would do well against that kind of fighter. Fury would be the most vulnerable of the three because he can’t punch and his movement or breaking wouldn’t work.
“I don’t think so,” Mayweather said of whether Fury could be considered an all-time great. “Some people might think so. I really like Tyson Fury and I think he’s extremely talented for a guy his size. But if you get beat twice by a cruiserweight, you can’t say much about it. I think he (Fury) is a Hall of Famer.”
Fury is definitely NOT a Hall of Famer and certainly not an all-time great. He didn’t beat anyone except the old 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who was out of reach, and Deontay Wilder. We saw how good he is with recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. Those losses took the shine off Fury’s wins over Deontay while he was fighting him.
