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) outplayed unified heavyweight champion Usyk (23-0, 12 KOs) in the fight to earn a 12-round decision.
Jeff doesn’t think it was an exciting fight, labeling it as “mediocre”. Usyk won a unanimous decision in 12 rounds with scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Fury gave away his chances to win by doing nothing in the championship rounds when the fight was still on the line.
Weight and Performance
The weight Fury took slowed him down, making it difficult for him to fight as hard as he needed to win. He came into the first match looking flabby at 262 lbs, but bulked up to 281 lbs for the rematch.
Fury was so thick that he had to pull his trunks to minimize his stomach and leave a smaller target area for Usyk’s punches.
“The fight was extremely close. It could have gone either way, but I’m going to lean a little towards Tyson,” said Jeff Mayweather on his YouTube channel, believing that Tyson Fury has done enough to deserve victory over unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night.
“Any other time, he (Usyk) would do well, but not as well as Tyson did. Usyk will take on the heavyweights. They’ve all been beaten by Usyk. So, probably not,” said Jeff when asked if Fury and Anthony Joshua has a chance to become 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 too much. Basically, I think, both guys they fought safe, and that’s probably why Tyson didn’t fight too safe.
If Turki Alalashikh wants to create a trilogy between Fury and Usyk, he can do it. The fans don’t want to see it. With Fury coming off two defeats, it’s not a good time for Turki to match him against Anthony Joshua. Fury needs a win or two against a solid contender to redeem himself and raise his stock.
Turki must tell Fury that if he wants to get the pension payment against Joshua, he needs to earn it by fighting Daniel Dubois and Martin Bakole. Let him go 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 beaten by a cruiserweight,” Mayweather said when asked if Joshua, Fury and Daniel Dubois could stand with Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.
Fury seemed afraid of getting hurt in the rematch with Usyk last Saturday, and he wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t want to be kicked out. So, he played it safe, went through the motions, and got his $75 million payday without putting his skin at risk.
It wouldn’t end well for Fury, Joshua, or Dubois to go up against a prime Lewis, Foreman, or Mike Tyson. If there was a way to teleport when those guys were young, it would be interesting to see, 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 punch, and his movement or mauling doesn’t work.
“I don’t think so,” Mayweather said on whether Fury can be considered an all-time great. “Some people might think so. I really like Tyson Fury, and I think he’s very talented for a man of his size. But if you’ve been beaten twice by a cruiserweight, you can’t say much about that. I think that he’s (Fury) a Hall of Famer.”
Fury is certainly not a Hall of Famer, and certainly not an all-time great. He beat none other than the 40-year-old former Wladimir Klitschko, who was beyond the shot, and Deontay Wilder. We saw how good he is with his recent losses to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang. These defeats took the shine off Fury’s wins over Deontay while fighting him.
