Even though Fury “toyed” with Makhmudov at times, switching southpaws and finishing the 12th with his hands behind his back, Allen saw a version of Fury that was “five times slower” than the man who ruled the division a few years ago.
“To the naked eye he wasn’t great tonight. I thought it was a very average performance,” Dave Allen said on his channel about Fury’s performance against Makhmudov last Saturday. “It was like the old Tyson Fury, but five times slower.”
“If he had gone through the gears, he could have taken him out there, and he either chose not to or he couldn’t. A 36-year-old who hasn’t met Makhmudov shouldn’t be going 12 with a world-class heavyweight. Fury doesn’t have much left. He was really slow. The pace was slow, painfully slow, the top five is painfully slow.”
The general consensus among fans that the Wilder trilogy took the best of Fury seems more accurate with each fight. While he got the unanimous decision (120-108, 120-108, 119-109), it was more about Makhmudov being “disinterested” and slow than Fury being elite.
Allen’s X post about Fury “not having much left” reflects the reality of a 37-year-old heavyweight who has led a very hard life, both in and out of the ring.
Since the Wilder fights, victories over Dillian Whyte, and Derek Chisora has not required Fury to be at 100%. The Ngannou scare was the first big warning sign, and subsequent losses to Usyk in 2024 confirmed that elite-level agility was gone.
Many analysts believe the 2021 war with Wilder was the beginning of the end for his peak physical years. Every fight since then, Whyte, Chisora, Ngannou, and the Usyk bouts, has seemed like a steady decline in athleticism.
If he looked this old and slow against a version of Makhmudov that Allen described as “finished” and “hitting under water”, it really highlights the danger he faces against the younger, hungry crop.
Someone like Moses Itauma or Richard Torrez Jr. operate at a completely different frequency. They throw them with a speed and volume that requires elite reflexes to neutralize.
Fury used to move like a middleweight; now, as Allen put it, it looks like he’s fighting underwater or in slow motion.
“I’d like to see him box Joshua or Wilder,” Allen said of Fury. I wouldn’t want to see him boxing the young guys, anything too fresh, too sharp. I think he lost a step or two or three, to be honest.”
Allen, who wants to see him fight Joshua or Wilder, feels like he’s asking for an “Old Timer’s” tournament. It’s a way for Fury to cash in on a big domestic or legacy fight without getting embarrassed by the “young, fresh, sharp” guys Allen said he wants Fury to avoid.
If he couldn’t “go through the gears” against a guy Allen says is “done,” how does he survive twelve rounds with someone like Jalolov or even a rejuvenated AJ? The “Gypsy King” seems to be running purely on muscle memory and reputation at this point.
