Fighting to join the pantheon of all-time greats
While the rest of the boxing world is drooling in anticipation of a genuine heavyweight world title fight that will unify the division for the first time in over 20 years, Tyson Fury insists this weekend’s match-up with Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh is all about the money.
“The truth is it’s exciting to me and attractive because of the amount of money I’m getting paid,” he said. “Not because of the belts that’s on the line.”
It is true the self-styled “Gypsy King” – Fury is the son of Irish Travellers – will earn north, perhaps far north, of US$100 million from the fight but there is a sense that he may just be covering up a little bit. For Gypsy King read “Contradiction King”.
Fury, now 35, knows well enough what this fight means: a place among the greats of boxing history. Going all the way back to Jack Dempsey in the 1920s, only 23 fighters can claim that place in the pantheon: these are great names including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson.
No one, however, has done it, since another British boxer
Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in 1999.
Usyk holds the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts while Fury has held the WBC title since 2020.
So is it just about the Saudi gold, pleasant though that be?
“There are so many belts on the line and nothing competes with that,” Fury said last month in direct contradiction of this week’s sound bite. “This is the fight of the ages, nothing can compare with this. Not a show fight, not a crossover fight, not YouTube boxing, nothing.
“This is two undefeated world heavyweight championships colliding for all the belts. It hasn’t been done since whenever.”
Usyk may hold four belts, but to many the Ukrainian is the underdog going into the longawaited unifying title fight.
Size matters, it seems, with southpaw Usyk conceding 15cm in height to the 2.06-metre Fury, 18cm in reach and close to a massive 22kg in weight.
And yet, he is not perturbed.
“To win this, I don’t need to be heavy, I need to be fast and quick,” Usyk told The Ring magazine in February just before the Fury fight was postponed after the Briton picked up a cut in training.
“You never see a fat wolf in the forest.”
It is easy to see Usyk as the lean wolf, cunning, quick and ruthlessly effective. His perfect record of 21 wins and no defeats as a pro, 14 of those inside the distance, speaks for itself.
And apart from those three heavyweight belts he can also look back on a career that brought him Olympic gold in London in 2012 and the undisputed cruiserweight championship of the world.
Beyond the undoubted pedigree in the ring, he also has the fire within that a boxer desperately needs when he has reached the comfort of the mountain top.
The war in Ukraine, which followed Russia’s invasion in February 2022, has ensured that. It gives Usyk an extra dimension.
“I fight for legacy, not money,” Usyk told The Ring. “Heavyweight boxing has not had this kind of fight since 1999. I know the history.”
Fury summed it up by saying, “I’m fighting the real deal”.