Tyson Fury likely to take Oleksandr Usyk rematch – but Anthony Joshua clash has moved further away
Tyson Fury will have a long, hard think about his future after the first loss of his 16-year career and may even contemplate retirement when he spends time with his pregnant wife Paris once home in Morecambe.
There is a conundrum for the 35-year-old. What next? Go into another deep, hard fight? Get revenge in a rematch? Walk away with his health intact and millions in the bank? Or fight for another £80 million and put the record straight?
One suspects the ‘Gypsy King’ will be lured back to the rematch with Oleksandr Usyk once the dust from the painful defeat has settled. But there is much to consider. When Fury and his team analyse the contest, and look back over it forensically, there is a lot to take away from it, some positive, some negative.
Six rounds into the contest, Fury was dominating, and the consensus at the time around the ring apron was a concern for Usyk, and whether he could sustain the Briton’s ascendancy in a battle of skill. But Fury, as he admitted, began enjoying himself in there. Comfort and confidence may have, bizarrely, been his undoing in the second half of the fight.
It was in that ninth round, however, when signs of age were beginning to show, and yet Fury’s chin and powers of recovery are simply staggering. Make no mistake. This was a close fight, won by brilliance of Usyk in the last four rounds.
If Fury can win a second meeting – and there were three swing rounds in this fight which could have gone either way – the Briton would unify at least three of the belts, and his legacy as the leading heavyweight could be secured again. Fury camp insiders told me that pots of gold are no longer important, and this may sway Fury, but his pride as a fighting man in my view will draw him back for a second encounter with ‘the Cat’.
It is unlikely that all belts will be there in five months time. The IBF wants its belt back and in circulation, and politics and the sanctioning bodies may tussle again – a point that Turki Al-alsheikh aims to battle against by making the best against the best, as often as possible.
Usyk’s win, nonetheless, elevates the Ukrainian into the pantheon of the greats, given his rise from the cruiserweight division, and even puts Anthony Joshua’s two defeats by Usyk into a different perspective.
What this contest has also done is to rubber stamp the era, with at least one of the two fights between Usyk and Fury complete. It was an epic, absorbing, thrilling contest, befitting of the first undisputed fight in the blue riband division for a quarter of a century.
But a cloud hangs over the all-British clash we have desired for so long. If anything, the Fury-Joshua fight has moved further away after this outcome, and there are those close to Fury who believe that one more fight ought to be enough after hard fights with Deontay Wilder, Francis Ngannou and Usyk.
Time waits for no man and Fury’s devoted camp, and his family, will urge the heavyweight to not go on too long.
The next 12 to 18 months will be the end of an era. Usyk, Fury, Wilder and Joshua are all well into their 30s. There is no clear leader emerging after them, not any time soon, with 19-year-old Briton Moses Itauma, who was on Saturday night’s card, needing a year or two to become one of the standard bearers.
Saturday night was a very important moment for the division, because it was No 1 versus No 2, and right now, Usyk is the king. Time will tell if the Ukrainian remains there.
