Jeff Mayweather says he felt Tyson Fury did enough to win a close decision against Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch in Riyadh last Saturday night. He thinks Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) has done 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 and 116-112. Fury threw away his chances of winning by not doing anything 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 came into the first bout looking limp at 262 lbs, but made up for it by bulking up to 281 lbs for the rematch.
Fury was so stocky that he had to pull up his trunks to reduce his stomach and leave a smaller target area for Usyk’s punches.
“The fight was very close. It could go either way, but I’ll lean a little bit toward Tyson,” Jeff Mayweather sided YouTube channel, and believes Tyson Fury did enough to earn the win over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night.
“He (Usyk) will do well every other round, but not as much as Tyson. Usyk takes over the heavyweights. They are all beaten by Usyk. So, probably not,” Jeff said 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 for me was very good. The second fight was mediocre. Neither of them did too much. Basically, I think both guys fought safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t get the fight. He fought too safely.
If Turki Alashikh 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 two defeats, this is not good timing for Turki to match him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against a solid contender to redeem himself and build up his stock.
Turki needs to tell Fury that if he wants to get the retirement payday against Joshua, he has to earn it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Let him walk through fire first to get that big mega payday.
Fury’s cautious approach
“He didn’t take enough risks. I don’t think so. Everyone gets beat by a cruiserweight,” Mayweather said when asked if Joshua, Fury and Daniel Dubois could hang with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.
Fury looked scared of getting hurt in the rematch with Usyk last Saturday, and he’s not going to take any chances. He didn’t want to be knocked out. So, he played it safe, went through the motions and got his $75 million payday without risking his skin.
It won’t end well for Fury, Joshua or Dubois to take on a top Lewis, Foreman or Mike Tyson. If there was a way to teleport them back to when those guys were young, that would be interesting to see, but none of them would fare well against those kinds of fighters. Fury would be the most vulnerable of the three because he can’t punch, and his movement or rapping 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 when you get beaten 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 everyday great. He beat none other than an old 40 year old Wladimir Klitschko, who was past shot, and Deontay Wilder. We saw how good he is with his recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. Those defeats took the shine off Fury’s victories over Deontay when he fought him.
