same crowd saying Fury was knocked out in the first Wilder fight, the ref decides the rules, not some armchair idiot at home
i think it isn't fair to claim fury isn't a puncher now. he used to be known for lacking power, but he's KO'd chisora, whyte, and wilder twice - before looking like shit against ngannou and getting schooled by usyk.
Yeah Usyk's been in with several of the hardest hitters at cruiser & heavyweight. He was tagged clean by all of them. His chin held up fine. In the amateurs he also fought heavy hitters like Beterbiev on 3 occasions. Usyk's chin is proven. It could fail as he's getting older, and he's 38 in a few weeks, but it's shown to be granite so far.
his psychiatrists told him he had a split personality, then laid a 90 dollar bill on him, he gave him forty five bucks and told him to get 45 from the other guy.
he looked absolutely imposing in the 2nd wilder fight, he didn't even land a clean punch in that one and he was beating Wilder. He never fought like that in any fight I've seen, before or since. It's gotta be a temperment thing. Some guys just don't want to kill with every punch.
i forgot who it was, but some high profile trainer was saying for years that fury would eventually start knocking people out... even when he wasn't a puncher.
that's my belief, just look at some of those wilder knockdowns in the 2nd fight, the noise alone they made told you he was trying to hurt that man. He actually was putting wilder down with "punches" that were basically his palm, not landing clean blow and still doing damage.
The common theme being that Usyk hit Fury's body whenever he went there and he was consistently targeting it the whole fight. Did you see those powerful straight left hands to the body especially in round 2 & 3? They drained Fury. The second half of the fight was all Usyk. It's hard to even give Fury any of those rounds. That's also how the official judges scored it.
Fury was constantly leading and getting off first. I think the people thinking he won are giving him credit for all those punches that landed on gloves. Fury did some good work with his jab, landed the harder punches in the fight but that's only a few punches, neither guy seriously hurt. Again, Fury worked but he just was not landing enough. How can you give credit for punches that land on the sides of gloves? He tried though, he was even trying to snake in a straight right hand but it just didn't work. Right guy won, just don't take poll of brits for that though.
he was trying to bully him in the 12th and usyk put him back in his place. My opinion? That's how he shoulda fought right from the start. Just let physics do the work for you. Him trying to win technical fight just isn't in the cards.
The cleanest punches though were landed by Usyk. He had the quality & quantity consistently throughout the fight. There were a few punches that Fury landed to the chest that knocked him off balance but that's not unusual. He had a 50+ lbs weight advantage. I think it was round 11 when Usyk really started lighting him up. Walking him down relentlessly. Fury's best work came in the first half. It's the second half that really cost him the fight. Usyk was getting stronger and Fury started fading by like round 7.
That's a phenomenon you see a lot today or even in this century so far... Boxers starting to fight in the 12th round.
the brits i'm seeing, Anthony joshua had it 95-95, midfight, don't know who he thought one, Hamed thought the rubber match was called for, the brits are everywhere on social media claiming larceny.
Yup, Ali used to do that in his late career as champ, he pulled out a lot of fights at the end (some he didn't deserve) he valiantly tried it with Leon Spinks when it sunk in that he was gonna lose to a guy with 8 fights, Spinks still kicked his ass in that last round. And I think one judge still managed to give the fight to Ali when he didn't really win a round.
