Tyson Fury ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk (Image: undefined)
has delivered a scathing assessment of fellow British heavyweights and Daniel Dubois, calling them “limited” in the build-up to his rematch with . Despite losing their first fight for the undisputed world title back in May to the skilled Ukrainian, Fury is gearing up for an explosive return bout set to take place just before Christmas in Riyadh, with three titles on the line this time.
The ‘Gypsy King’ has revealed he will stick with his elusive boxing style, drawing attention to his unique abilities at his size. , Fury said: “Pretty much the same as I did before, good boxing. Someone of my size and heaviness, it’s not normal that I should be able to box and slip, so why would I take that away from my game? People say to me I need to walk forward on Usyk, walk him down and hit him, but if it was so easy why didn’t Joshua, who is a big strong man, do that? Why didn’t Dubois do it? Those men are limited compared to me, very limited.”
“A man who walks forward to him is Christmas come early. I’m a side-on boxer, slipping, sliding, uppercutting, hooking, I’m going to do that but with more focus. A little bit more focused on my job, I think that’s my way to victory.” Fury also confirmed there will be no shake-ups in his training team despite some critics pointing fingers at his father John’s influence after the previous loss.
Fury Sr, who is Tyson Fury’s father, was among the trio bellowing tactical advice during rounds at his son’s bout, along with the expertise of trainers SugarHill Steward and Andy Lee. Despite some calling for a shake-up in Fury’s corner, the heavyweight boxer remains undeterred.
“People can have opinions… but at the end of the day they’re not in the ring doing the fighting so it’s unimportant what they think about what’s going on in my corner. If I’m happy, the world’s happy, and I’m happy,” declared Fury. Across the ring, Usyk articulated that he never felt threatened by Fury’s hits, and the disappointed fighter disputed that the match should have been halted amidst the barrage in the ninth round, retorting, “It’s the world heavyweight title fight, undisputed [so the fight should not have been stopped].”
He added, “At least a man’s got to go down to the floor and someone like me, who has been down loads of times, who gets back up, at least give me one chance.” Demonstrating sportsmanship and faith, Fury accepted defeat gracefully, saying, “I’m a big believer in God. So I believe that God has a plan for everybody, and the plan was for Usyk to win this fight. And he did, so fair play. I knew it was a close fight. I thought I’d done enough, but listen, I don’t complain. He’s got the victory. I was happy for him. I congratulated him. I was happy that we both went home to our family safe.”