Tyson Fury may have accidentally described his own career when he warned Fabio Wardley that a brutal loss can change a fighter permanently, as Fury himself hasn’t looked the same since running into Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury recently pointed to Deontay Wilder as an example of a heavyweight whose career changed after being punished in their trilogy, and warned Wardley of the potential long-term effects following his penalty loss to Daniel Dubois. The comparison has drawn attention because many fans now believe Fury has gone through a similar decline since losing twice to Usyk.
Tony Bellew added fuel to that conversation this week as he discussed Fury’s defeats and the difficulty of facing Usyk.
“Just put it like it is. He was better than you. Tyson Fury spent 12 months humiliating him and dehumanizing him and insulting him,” Bellew said on Fight Your Corner podcast.
“Then when he beat him, it was like, ‘I’ve been robbed’. No, he’s great, I just didn’t think he was that good, none of the credit he deserves, which I don’t like. If you get beat by someone better than you, just keep your hands up.
“It kills him. That’s what breaks his heart the most, that he’s met someone who’s just better than him. But he’s not the only one, and he has to accept that,” Tony Bellew told Sky Sports.
Bellew’s comments stood out because he experienced Usyk himself. Bellew was ahead on two scorecards entering the eighth round of their 2018 undisputed cruiserweight bout before he was stopped.
“Oleksandr Usyk is the only person I faced, and my game plan went perfectly. Everything was perfect,” Bellew said. “At the end of round seven I have two cards, and I draw on the third card, but I didn’t know where I was at the start of round eight. He made me so tired.
“He’s the best fighter I’ve ever faced. His footwork was on another level. He took down everything I did, and he used it against me in the end. He’s exceptional. I’ve never faced anyone who could do what he did to me.”
The timing of Bellew’s comments is interesting because Fury’s career has looked very different since the first Usyk loss. Fury clearly lost the rematch, retired for more than a year and then returned against Arslanbek Makhmudov, who looked slower and less fluid than the version that dominated Wilder and outboxed Wladimir Klitschko earlier in his career.
Fury still won the fight, but the aura that once surrounded him didn’t quite return.
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Last updated on 2026/05/20 at 12:33
