His Excellency Turki Alalshikh revealed that tickets are now on sale for the December 21st rematch between WBA, WBC and WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury for their rematch at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As Turki says, the Usyk-Fury 2 fight will “determine the fate of the title”. Unfortunately, the rematch will not be for the undisputed championship this time as Usyk no longer holds the IBF belt. So, it will be three belts instead of four, but the fight will still have a lot on the line, especially for Fury.
The 36-year-old Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) looks to avenge his 12-round split decision loss to Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) earlier this year on May 18 in Riyadh. Fury has Anthony Joshua waiting for a clash against him, and that fight will be tainted if he is beaten by Usyk again, especially if he is knocked out this time.
Many fans feel it the referee saved Fury of a knockout in round nine of his fight against Usyk. The referee pushed Usyk out of the way and prevented him from finishing off the badly injured Fury, who was then helpless.
In normal situations the referee would have kicked and waved it off. In this case, the referee stopped the action and gave Fury a standing eight count. The time it took saved Fury from being knocked out. That little episode cast a black cloud over the fight, leading some fans to feel that Fury was given preferential treatment to prevent the popular British fighter from being knocked out.
Hopefully we don’t see a similar fight save standing eight count in the rematch because that would be a bad look.
Tickets have been released for the highly anticipated fight that will decide the fate of the title between champions…
Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury in a new clash for the #Usyk2Fury heavyweight world titlesDecember 21
Kingdom ArenaBook your ticket now
… pic.twitter.com/xzylP6fMnK
— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) November 6, 2024
“Fury started very well in the first fight and won the majority of the handful of rounds. I think he’s starting to run out of steam,” Demsey McKean told Secondsout channel about the fury vs. Usyk first game earlier this year on May 18.
“I heard Andy Lee talk about not having much sparring for it. So, maybe his conditioning failed him. I’m going to see if he comes into this fight much fitter and much more conditioned.”
Trainer Andy Lee’s comments about Fury not sparring for his fight against Usyk last time sound more like a team member trying to come up with excuses to explain away his loss. The reason Fury lost is because he lacked the skills, punch resistance and youth to handle the talent of the more athletically gifted Usyk. Again, Fury should have been knocked out in round nine.
“If he can kind of keep that pace with Usyk, I think he should get the job done,” McKean said. “But I think Usyk is going to have a little more experience and confidence. It will be interesting to see how Fury bounces back after that loss. I’m moving towards Usyk.”
It could be worse for Fury in the rematch, as the referee probably won’t step in to give him a standing eight count when he’s hurt by Usyk because they’re not going to want to deal with the fans’ backlash afterwards.
“I didn’t expect Usyk to rock Fury because Usyk isn’t a massive puncher either, but look what happened. He landed a nice left hook cleanly, and that was all she wrote. For a moment it looked like he was lucky to survive that round. A knockout can be justified on both ends for sure,” McKean said.
