WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury showed off his lean, trimmed-down physique today, looking ready for his undisputed championship fight against IBF/WBA/WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk next Saturday, seven days from now, on May 18th, in Riyadh.
Extended Training Time Pays Off
Fans on social media note that it took Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) two training camps to lose the weight to be ready for his fight against Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs).
Fury’s cut that he sustained last February gave him an extra three months to prepare for the fight. At the time of the injury, he looked chunky and not physically ready to take on a fighter the level of Usyk.
Next Saturday, Fury and Usyk will be fighting on pay-per-view on DAZN and ESPN+ at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The two were previously supposed to fight on February 17th, but Fury’s cut required that the fight be postponed.
A Question of Motivation and Form
People criticized ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury for coming in at a career-high 277 lbs for his last fight against Francis Ngannou last October. Fury made a reported $50 million for the fight but still didn’t take his training seriously enough to come in in good shape.
Fury was knocked down and labored to a questionable 10-round split decision against Ngannou, a fighter that Anthony Joshua recently destroyed in two rounds. The performance by the 35-year-old Fury against Ngannou made fans question whether he’s over-the-hill physically and mentally.
With a bank stuffed with enough money to live comfortably through 20 lifetimes, the hunger that Fury once had appears to be gone, and he’s heading into a fight against a dedicated fighter in Usyk that he would be at his best to defeat.
A Glimmer of Hope?
Fury is taking the Usyk fight more seriously than he did the Ngannou match, but it’s still a lot to ask from a fighter who has become one-dimensional since 2018 and mostly just grapples.
Fury’s weight loss has some boxing fans believing that he’ll bring the same kind of form that he had when he upset Wladimir Klitschko. They think that Fury has become young again and will be able to do the kind of things inside the ring that he hasn’t shown since the Klitschko fight.
It doesn’t seem very likely that losing 30 lbs of weight due to Fury’s extra training time will magically transform him into the fighter he was nine years ago. Even that fighter was basic.
Fury spent most of the fight leaning against the ropes to keep Wladimir from landing headshots and throwing slapping punches with no power. It was an ugly fight to watch, but that was Fury at his best when he was in his mid-20s.
