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Jeff Mayweather says he felt Tyson Fury did enough to win a close decision against Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night in their rematch in Riyadh. He thinks Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) did more than unified heavyweight champion Usyk (23-0, 12 KOs) in the fight to win a 12-round decision.
Jeff doesn’t think it was an exciting fight and calls it a “mediocre.” Usyk won by unanimous decision over 12 rounds with scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Fury lost his chances of winning by doing nothing in the championship rounds when the fight was still on the line.
Weight and performance
The weight Fury took on slowed him down, making it difficult for him to fight as hard as he needed to win. He had entered the first bout looking limp at 262 pounds, but resolved the situation by bulking up to 281 pounds for the rematch.
Fury was so beefy that he had to lift his trunks to minimize his stomach and leave a smaller target area for Usyk’s punches.
“The fight was extremely close. “I could go either way, but I’m going to lean a little bit towards Tyson,” Jeff Mayweather said in his YouTube channel, believing Tyson Fury did enough to deserve victory over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk last Saturday night.
“Every round, he (Usyk) would do well, but not as good as Tyson did. Usyk takes over the heavyweights. Usyk is defeating them all. So, probably not,” Jeff said when asked if Fury and Anthony Joshua have a chance of becoming world champions again.
“I don’t think anyone wants to see a third fight (between Fury and Usyk). The first fight for me was very good. The second fight was mediocre. Neither of them did much. Basically, I think both guys were fighting it safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t get the fight. He was fighting too safe.
If Turki Alalashikh wants to set up a trilogy between Fury and Usyk, he can do it. Fans won’t want to see it. With Fury coming off two losses, it is not a good time for Turki to pit him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against a solid contender to redeem himself and boost his stock.
Turki should tell Fury that if he wants to get the retirement payday against Joshua, he needs to earn it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Let him walk through the fire first to get that big mega payday.
Fury’s cautious approach
“He didn’t take enough risks. I don’t think so. “Everyone is getting beat by a cruiserweight,” Mayweather said when asked if Joshua, Fury and Daniel Dubois could be with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.
Fury seemed afraid of getting hurt in the rematch with Usyk last Saturday and wasn’t going to take any chances. I didn’t want to get knocked out. So, he played it safe, followed through, and got his $75 million payday without putting his skin at risk.
It wouldn’t end well for Fury, Joshua or Dubois to face top-tier Lewis, Foreman or Mike Tyson. It would be interesting to see if there was a way to teleport them when those guys were young, but none of them would do well against those types of fighters. Fury would be the most vulnerable of the three because he can’t hit and his move or attack wouldn’t work.
“I don’t think so,” Mayweather said of whether Fury can be considered an all-time great. “Some people might think so. I really like Tyson Fury and think he’s extremely talented for a guy his size. But if a cruiserweight beats you twice, you can’t say much about it. “I think (Fury) is a Hall of Famer.”
Fury is definitely NOT a Hall of Famer and certainly not an all-time great. He didn’t beat anyone other than an old 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who was out of reach, and Deontay Wilder. We’ve seen how good he is with his recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. Those losses took the shine off Fury’s victories over Deontay while fighting him.
