Tyson Fury promises less clowning and more punching Oleksandr Usyk in the face during their upcoming rematch for boxing’s heavyweight championship.
Usyk won a split decision in May in Saudi Arabia, and they get back in the ring there Dec. 21. Fury doesn’t plan to change much from his first loss as a pro, beyond doing everything he can to avoid leaving the result to the judges.
“I’ll just throw more this time,” Fury said Wednesday. “Keep hitting him in the face more often than I did last time.”
The first matchup made Usyk boxing’s first undisputed heavyweight champion in 24 years. Fury (34-1-1) quickly activated his right to a rematch, though only three belts will be on the line this time because the IBF stripped Usyk for not facing its mandatory challenger, Daniel Dubois.
Fury is 5-0, with all the wins by stoppage, in rematches, including two knockouts of Deontay Wilder after a draw in their first fight, which was Fury’s only other bout that didn’t end with a victory.
The first matchup with Usyk (22-0) was so close that he doesn’t see a need for significant changes in strategy from seven months ago.
“I’m just going to box smart, box clever and if I catch him, get him out of there,” Fury said. “Pretty similar to what I did last time. A little bit less clowning around and a bit more focus and that’s it, really.”
Fury, 36, loves to entertain, and he was putting his arms behind his back and making faces right from the start of the first fight. But perhaps in an acknowledgement of the talent of Usyk, the former cruiserweight champion before moving up to fight the biggest boys, Fury realizes he will need to do less of it.
“I did more clowning than anybody in any high-level fight’s ever done,” he said. “It’s taken my focus away as well, so maybe a little less clowning and more focus on the actual victory. I was messing around too much in there.”
But it was a loss of energy, not focus, that Fury said led to the punch that ultimately swung a back-and-forth fight Usyk’s way. A left hand stung Fury, and Usyk followed up with a flurry of hard shots and was credited with a knockdown — though Fury never went to the canvas.
The 6-foot-9 Fury wasn’t surprised that he was caught or even that he was hurt by a man he outweighed by about 40 pounds but blamed himself for allowing it to happen.
“It wasn’t so much what he did right. It was me more fatigued than anything else, getting lackadaisical, you know what I mean?” Fury said. “Throwing punches while I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. It wasn’t for what he did was so great, it’s what I did that was a mistake really. And that’s it.”
Fury has been dropped quite a bit in recent years, a total of four times by Wilder and another by MMA fighter Francis Ngannou in a 2023 bout that Fury won by split decision. He concedes that the accumulation of shots has made him a different fighter than the one who beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to become champion.
“I’m not the same guy I was at 21 or 22, but who is at that age?” Fury said. “No one is, I suppose. Muhammad Ali wasn’t. Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson definitely wasn’t. Nobody is. Who is the same man they are at 36 as they was at 26? Nobody really. So yeah, all of those fights have a big effect on human beings.
“I remember when I was a young guy in my 20s and I said to Wladimir Klitschko, ‘Look at you, you’re an old man.’ He was 37. I said, ‘You’re old.’ I said, ‘You’ve got gray hairs in your beard.’ I said, ‘It’s a young man’s game.’ Now I’m in that position, I’m in that boat.”
And, Fury realizes, sometimes guys who were could still talk a good game even after they could no longer fight one.
“Sometimes when fighters lose a fight, they can never win another one when that bubble’s been burst,” he said. “They’re never the same. I’ve seen it many times.”
As for Fury?
“We’ll find out Saturday night, won’t we?” he said.