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Jeff Mayweather says he felt Tyson Fury did enough to win a tight decision against Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night in their rematch in Riyadh. He thinks 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 a 12-round unanimous decision with scores of 116-112, 116-112, 116-112. Fury gave away his chances of winning by doing nothing in the championship rounds when the fight was still on the line.
Weight and performance
The weight Fury put on slowed him down, making it difficult for him to fight as hard as he needed to win. He had come into the first match looking flabby at 262 pounds, but made up for it by bulking up to 281 pounds for the rematch.
The fury was so thick that he had to lift his trunk to minimize his stomach and leave a smaller area for Usyk’s punches.
“The fight was very close. It could go either way, but I’m going to lean a little bit towards Tyson,” Jeff Mayweather said in his YouTube channel, believing Tyson Fury did enough to deserve victory over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night.
“An alternate round, he (Usyk) would do well, but not as much as Tyson. Usyk takes over the heavyweights. Usyk beats them all. So probably not,” Jeff said when asked if Fury and Anthony Joshua they have a chance to become world champions again.
“I don’t think anybody wants to see a third fight (between Fury and Usyk). The first fight for me was really good. The second fight was mediocre. Neither of them did too much. Basically, I think both guys were fighting safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t get the fight. He was fighting too safe.
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 on the back of two losses, it’s not a good time for Turki to match him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against a solid contender to redeem himself and raise his stock.
Turki should tell Fury that if he wants to get his retirement payday against Joshua, he needs to win it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Let him go through the fire first to get that big payday.
Fury’s cautious approach
“He didn’t take enough risks. I don’t think so. Everybody’s getting hit by a cruiserweight,” Mayweather said when asked if Joshua, Fury and Daniel Dubois could be with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.
Fury was afraid of getting hurt in the rematch with Usyk last Saturday, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. I didn’t want to be knocked out. So, he played it safe, made the moves, and got his $75 million payday without risking his skin.
It wouldn’t end well if Fury, Joshua or Dubois faced Lewis, Foreman or Mike Tyson. If there was a way to teleport them when those guys were young, that would be interesting to see, but none of them would do well against these types of fighters. Fury would be the most vulnerable of the three because he can’t punch, and his movement or grappling wouldn’t work.
“I don’t think so,” Mayweather said of whether Fury can be considered an all-time great. “Some people might think so. I really like Tyson Fury and I think he’s got a lot of talent for a guy his size. But if a cruiserweight beats you twice, you can’t say much. I think it’s ( Fury) a Hall of Famer.”
Fury is definitely NOT a Hall of Famer and certainly not an all-time great. He beat nobody but an old 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who was out of danger, and Deontay Wilder. We saw how good he is with his recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. Those losses took the shine off Fury’s wins over Deontay while fighting him.
