It took us a while to get here, but Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk will finally throw hands on February 17th, for all of the heavyweight marbles.
Fans have been torn on who they believe will win. Make room for Anthony Joshua on the couch of indecisiveness as he’s thought long and hard on how things will play out.
Fury, like always, will have a gigantic size advantage. But size doesn’t always win fights. Joshua, on two separate occasions, towered over Usyk. His biceps were also twice Usyk’s size. Yet, even with all of the physical advantages in the world, Usyk managed to kick Joshua off his throne in their first meeting. In the second, he kept him off it.
That personal experience with Usyk makes the Ukrainian hard to beat – even for somebody as great as Fury.
“I don’t know,” said Joshua to Boxing Social when asked to pick a winner. “I’ve fought Usyk. I think he’s a phenomenal fighter and I think he has a great team around him. You’re only as good as your team and he has a great team around him. After being in the ring with him and studying him, still studying him now, I think he’s the one to edge it.”
For a long list of reasons, Joshua has never liked Fury. The way he conducts himself in the ring and the antics outside of it have simply rubbed the former unified champ the wrong way. But, Joshua doesn’t want his opinion to come across as either spurious or biased.
Usyk has a unique and perplexing style, one that no one, including Joshua, has been able to figure out. For that reason alone, the 34-year-old has a feeling that Usyk will do just enough to become an undisputed champion.
“Probably because of his experiences, his ring generalship, and ring craft. I think he’s top-tier.”