Tyson Fury ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk (Image: undefined)
has confidently declared he doesn’t harbour the same level of fear for as he did for .
‘The Gypsy King’ is gearing up for a rematch with the Ukrainian this Saturday, aiming to even the score after Usyk handed him his first professional defeat earlier in the year with a split decision victory. Throughout his career, 36 year old Fury has been embroiled in numerous legendary battles, notably his trilogy with Wilder. Despite being floored in the 12th round of their initial bout, Fury managed to secure a draw against ‘The Bronze Bomber’.
He then triumphed over the American in their subsequent encounters, delivering a knockout in both rematches. The second fight was dominated by Fury, but in the third, Wilder managed to floor Fury multiple times before ultimately succumbing to a knockout in the later rounds.
When comparing Wilder to Usyk, Fury acknowledges that ‘The Bronze Bomber’ posed a constant threat. “It’s a different animal. Let me just say this, and I’ll speak brutally, because I’ve fought both men, and both men are good fighters and I respect them. But when you’re in the ring with a prime Deontay Wilder with his 43 KOs, and knocked out the one he didn’t knock out before, you know you’re in trouble at any given moment, whether it’s Round 1, Round 10, Round 12 with two seconds to go,” Fury explained.
“One mistake, it’s game over. With Wilder – with Usyk, I don’t feel that much terror. There’s no fear there, do you know what I mean? Basically after he hit me in the Round 9, how many times did he hit me clean after that, in that round, to the end of the 40 seconds to the end of the bell, how many free shots did he get? ” “He caught me with quite a few, though. Cuffing shots, whatever, didn’t do anything. Didn’t knock me down even. So if I would have had him on that position, I’d have knocked him out.
“If I’d have been in that position with Daniel Dubois, I’d have been knocked out cold. So he’s a good boxer, and obviously, he’s heavyweight. He can punch you hard, but there’s different levels to power, if that makes any sense. One man can switch you off like a tv switching off, and one man can hit you and hurt you and try and wear you down, type of thing. So it’s a different beast. So when I got knocked down in Round 4 of the third fight twice, it was like, it’s f****** fight or die now. That’s it.”
“But in that fight with Usyk, I didn’t feel at any point, even in Round 9, that I was about to be taken out. And I look back at it, even now I look back at that, obviously the Round 9, the last, what, 40 seconds. Because the first two minutes of the round, probably my way, big time. I don’t feel – I feel like he hit me with quite a few shots in a row, unanswered, and he didn’t do any good. So if you’ve done that and you can’t get a man out of there, just like Wilder did in Round 12 of that fight, he had me down, didn’t he, but couldn’t keep me down. I feel sorry for him in the rematch.”