Shakur Stevenson gives Tyson Fury the edge to defeat unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night in their rematch in Saudi Arabia.
Shakur’s prediction
WBC lightweight champion Stevenson says Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) will win if he is “in shape” and remains “focused.” “Shakur gives Fury a 55-45 chance of defeating WBA, WBC and WBO champion Usyk.
The Bearded Fury seems fit for him, but he can’t make a difference. He was in form the last time he fought Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) on May 18, and also lost the fight by a split decision in 12 rounds.
Fury’s problem is not his condition. It’s his glass jaw from his three fights with Deontay Wilder. He can no longer take a punch, and Usyk will expose that weakness on Saturday, just as he did in his previous fight when he had him on his feet in the ninth round in Riyadh.
Usyk so big bro it’s so tough against him over the course of a 12 round fight.. I’m like 55-45 Fury on this one.. All Fury has to do is get in shape and stay focused for all the fight! !
— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) December 16, 2024
Destructive force?
“I expect a fight that I will win and be destructive and contemptible,” said Tyson Fury Queensberry Promotionspredicting a win against Oleksandr Usyk. “I landed on purpose at the bottom. They said I couldn’t come forward, and then me and SugarHill (Steward) got together, and I became a destructive puncher and he started hitting everyone.”
The opponents that Fury eliminated from his team with SugarHill Steward in December 2019 were nothing special. Since then, Fury has defeated two British-level heavyweights, and Deontay Wilder, a non-world-class fighter, maneuvered to win his WBC world title by clever matchmaking.
Fury’s Knockouts Under SugarHill’s Watch
– Derek Chisora: *Journeyman
– Dillian Whyte: Ditto
– Deontay Wilder x 2
If Fury had knocked out some of the good heavyweights, such as Martin Bakole or Daniel Dubois, then you could say that SugarHill turned him into a “destructive puncher”, but he beat three scrubs.
Rationalize defeat
“He won this fight by one point last time, by one,” Fury said of Usyk. “If one of those other rounds, I had it from one of those rounds one through twelve. If the rounds were identical in the ones I won and lost, then it would have been a draw,” Fury said, trying to rationalize.
“If I had gotten any of the other rounds and I didn’t have a 10-8, I would have won it.”
