Tyson Fury's career as a main eventer will be on the line tonight in his rematch with three-belt heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
Usyk may be putting the 36-year-old former WBC heavyweight champion Fury out to pasture, as he appears to be physically done with his debut. Tyson's behavior has been bizarre, suggesting that his defeat to Awake last May took the best out of him.
Age explosion
Anger looks worn out, and it's not just because of the hard training. This fighting and the mental torture he had been subjected to over the past seven months had sent him into a tailspin Age explosion. This is where a person suddenly progresses rapidly. Fury has clearly had one since his loss to Usyk.
Rapid aging usually occurs in your 40s and 60s, but it can start earlier if a person is experiencing a high degree of stress.
Survive Fury's career
The 'Gypsy King' needs a win tonight to not only put himself in position for a trilogy with Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) if that's the direction he chooses to go but also to generate interest in the whole big-money showdown – the British bout against Anthony Joshua.
The worst possible situation is for Usyk to plow Fury tonight, get knocked out, and then slip up in the fight against Joshua, who is coming off a knockout defeat. Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) looked terrible, losing his last fight and needing to be saved by the referee in the ninth round.
What I want to know is who Fury will blame after what Usyk does tonight. The obvious fall guy would be his coach, Sugar Hill Stewardwho masterminded his victory over Deontay Wilder with his devastating game plan. Regardless, SugarHill should have been eliminated after Fury's controversial win over Francis Ngannou last year. Tyson really lost that fight but was saved by the judges in Riyadh.
What was clear was that SugarHill's game plan based on hitting wasn't working, and he had no other ideas. He was a one-trick pony. I don't know why Fury kept it after that instead of getting rid of it right away.
Fury has looked weak in his fights since his only major win in the last nine years, and SugarHill clearly has no ideas about improving him other than using the tired strategy he came up with in the Deontay fight. Fury has used this strategy time and time again in his fights against skill men Dillian Whyte, Dereck Chisora and 0-0 rookie Francis Ngannou.
If things don't go well tonight for Fury, he could give SugarHill and Andy Lee the royal boot. Then he can tell the media that he is going with a completely new team. Fans will buy into that, and Fury's loss to Usyk tonight will be partly dispelled.
Matchmaking magic
The truth is, Fury is not good, and he never was. He's always been just a fighter who's done well, He lives for his victory On 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko. Fury got a lot of mileage out of beating up the old gunman, who had already been knocked out in two rounds by Corey Sanders before he even fought him.
Other than that one win, Fury was unbeaten and was always a step above the British level, but his promoters carefully matched him to avoid players who would expose him to the light of day for being mediocre.
