For all the marbles: Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk

By David Hipkin

Published 14th April 2024 15:33

Updated 24th September 2024 00:11

Heavyweight boxing with mass-market appeal returns to Riyadh's Kingdom Arena on 18 May 2024 for "Ring Of Fire". Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk will be the first time in heavyweight boxing history that four belts are up for grabs. Fury is the WBC (and Lineal) Champion, while Usyk puts his IBF, WBA, and WBO straps on the line.

A boxing conundrum

One of the reasons boxing has always fascinated me, as someone who likes to find value in the betting markets, is that there is no real, relevant historical data to analyse. For me, this is part of the great appeal of previewing and predicting boxing matches.

The old adage that “styles make fights” is absolutely correct, and a fighter with a huge KO percentage can often have that advantage annulled depending on the style of the next opponent. Sometimes we just know we are going to get fireworks, sometimes the big fights fail to deliver on the hype.

Further, just because Boxer A beats Boxer B, and Boxer B beats Boxer C, that doesn’t mean Boxer C can’t beat Boxer A. To read too much into these types of form-lines is a mistake in boxing, more so than in any other sport.

Without historical data to dig into, as fight fans, we are left to weigh-up our own input variables when assessing the relative skillsets and records of the two fighters in any given matchup.

And this is where I introduce the first controversy. In boxing, it is my firm opinion that if you are in your 40s you are significantly and unequivocally past your peak. As an elite-level athlete, you are in physiological decline.

This is without exception, regardless of how many Foreman, Hopkins, Klitschko or Pacquiao fans tell me otherwise.

The 38-Year-Old Rule

For me, there is an almost unbreakable rule that by the time a boxer has turned 38, there has to be an asterisk next to any contest they are involved in. It is a rule that I have employed with great success over the years when hunting for value in big fights.

Julio Cesar Chavez & The 38-Year-Old Rule

At the end of a Hall-Of-Fame career, Julio Cesar Chavez announced his retirement in the ring immediately after being outclassed by Kostya Tszyu. He had just turned 38.
All-time-great Floyd Maywether's last serious boxing match was when he was 38.
Lennox Lewis was nearly 38 when he realised he didn't have it anymore, having struggled to overcome Vitali Klitschko, a big outsider who had come in as a late replacement on a few weeks notice.
Heavyweight legend Larry Holmes was 38 years old when he was humiliated by a prime Mike Tyson in 1988.
At 38, Mike Tyson was unrecognizable in the boxing ring by the time of his final fight, when he was defeated by Kevin McBride, another massive underdog.
Evander Holyfield had enough left in the tank to beat John Ruiz as a 37 year-old, but was unable to beat him in his two next fights having turned 38.
Muhammad Ali, the best to ever do it, was 36 at the time of his last career victory. He was 38 when he suffered that infamous defeat to Larry Holmes in 1980.
Deontay Wilder had just turned 38 when we was comprehensively outboxed by 6/1 outsider Joseph Parker.
David Haye called it a day before turning 38 after back-to-back upset defeats and injuries in his two fights with Tony Bellew.
Joe Joyce was approaching 38 when he suffered his first career loss, as a big betting favourite against Zhilei Zhang.
Zhang himself was in his 40s and was a big favourite to beat Joseph Parker who would again upset the odds in their recent fight.
Joe Calzaghe earned decision wins over a 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. who was just shy of 40; two results that would have been far less likely had they occurred a decade earlier.

Throughout boxing's recent and not-so-recent history, fans and the odds-makers have often overlooked the impact of aging on highly successful fighters. Modern approaches to strength-and-conditioning might be in the process of extending this rule, but it is still valid.

There could be another instance of this on 1 June in one of the most anticipated fights of 2024. Don't be surprised if unbeaten Artur Beterbiev, who has stopped every man he has ever faced in a 10-year career, and widely picked to do the same to Dmitrii Bivol, fails to register a 21st win in a row. He is 39.

(Away from boxing, Novak Djokovic, the greatest tennis player of all time and one of the greatest athletes in the history of all sports, is currently 36 years old and ranked number 1 in the world. For what it's worth, I would make him odds-on to win a Grand Slam at the age of 37. I would make him odds-against to win one at 38 and I suspect he will be retired by 39.)

Fury's career-defining wins

This brings me to my first significant data point when assessing the Fury-Usyk match. Fury, and his loyal fans, put a huge amount of significance into his against-the-odds win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015.

Klitschko was a few months away from 40. Fury, who was 27 at the time, opened the betting as a 7/2 underdog and won a Unanimous Decision over the Ukrainian legend. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good performance by Fury who showed impressive athleticism for someone of his size.

But it hardly sent shockwaves through the sport like when Mike Tyson discombobulated Trevor Berbick and Micheal Spinks in quite breathtaking fashion during his brief heyday in the late 80s.

Anthony Joshua, who was also 27, went life-and-death with an even older Klitschko, who was 41 at the time of their Wembley Stadium fight in 2017. Having not yet faced any great adversity in the sport, Joshua had lofty ambitions of becoming a boxing billionaire.

'When I first started, the aim was to become a multimillionaire. Now I need to be a billionaire.' (Anthony Joshua, 2017)

Instead of reaching those heights after beating Klitschko, AJ has gone on to have a career that has failed to live up to the post-Olympics hype. Struggling to beat an aging Klitschko was a data point that suggested Joshua might have a somewhat lacklustre career.

So what does Fury's win over a 39 year-old Klitschko say about The Gypsy King's credentials?

When Fury brags about his Klitschko victory, I simply don’t listen. As a firm believer in The 38-Year-Old Rule, to me it has almost zero stock when assessing his record. This is the same way I feel about all the against-the-odds defeats of the "old" versions of the fighters in the list above. Tyson's depressing loss to McBride in 2005 has no impact on the Tyson legacy, something that was cemented in the '80s. Similarly, Ali will always be remembered for what he did in the '60s and '70s.

Fury's record

Fury’s resume is notably light on marquee names. After Klitschko, the next biggest name he has shared the ring with is Deontay Wilder. Wilder has freakish natural power, but what he lacks in terms of boxing fundamentals is pretty remarkable. Still, Fury had close fights with him, hitting the canvas four times during the combined 30 rounds across their three bouts.

Again, these were good performances by Fury. The second fight was a particularly impressive beatdown but the first fight was a draw and he certainly did not have things all his way in the third fight. Since these fights, Wilder has not looked the same. There is a good argument to be made that the trilogy has had an irreversible impact on Fury too.

Wind the clock back a decade and we have seen Fury struggle with the likes of domestic-level John McDermott and fringe-contender Steve Cunningham, who had only just stepped up from cruiserwight.

At Commonwealth level, Fury was dropped heavily by Neven Pajkic with the same punch, the straight right-hand, that McDermott, Cunningham and Wilder all had success with.

More recently, he has often looked ordinary in distance fights with the likes of Francesco Pianeta, who has not fought since, and Otto Wallin, who caused a horrifc cut on Fury's right eye that required 46 stitches. Wallin would likely have won by stoppage if the opponent had not been named Tyson Fury.

Meanwhile, Fury has engaged with a trilogy-that-nobody-wanted against Derek Chisora (now 40) over a ten-year period. For various reasons over the time of his career when he was in his peak years, huge box-office fights with David Haye, Anthony Joshua and John Ruiz (to name a few) failed to materialise. Even wins over the likes of Povetkin, Pulev or Luis Ortiz would look good on his record but the fights were never made.

Is this a resume that really stands up to scrutiny? I just don’t think so.

And we haven’t even mentioned Fury's 10-round decision over debuting Francis Ngannou last year. While he looked terrible for large passages of the fight, I thought Fury won at least seven of the ten rounds. That was no robbery.

Usyk's credentials at heavyweight

There are some boxers that you watch and it is obvious to see what they do well and what they do badly. Usyk is more subtle than that, and it is a joy to see him go about his craft.

He is not a huge puncher at heavyweight but he carries plenty of spite. Significantly the smaller man against Anthony Joshua, he looked like the bully in their first fight. He is also deceptively fast, in both handspeed and footwork.

Usyk rarely takes a breather, he fights at his pace; relentless and economical at the same time. Fury (always the bigger, stronger man) is used to bullying and setting the pace and I'm not sure he will be afforded that luxury on 18 May.

Coming up from a distinguished all-time-great career at cruiserweight, Usyk made AJ look slow, ponderous and short of ideas. Tyson Fury could well be in for a similar shock when he shares the ring with the smaller, more nimble man.

Just look at what he does here, early in the third round of his first fight with AJ. Joshua initiates the exchange, Usyk moves out of range and immediately comes back into range knowing that Joshua is expecting some restbite. Usyk lands a quick combination before Joshua knows what has hit him. Off a strong southpaw jab, he follows up with a straight left-hand down the middle, and has further success with the right-hook for good measure on the way out.

There are four things that judges look for when scoring a boxing match: (1) Ring Generalship, (2) Hard/Clean Punching, (3) Effective Aggression, and (4) Defense. Usyk demonstrates all four of these components in that short flurry illustrating why he is so hard to beat. He is the master of orchestrating proceedings on his terms.

And he makes it look effortless. It is second nature to him. For me, that brief exchange perfectly encapsulates the gulf-in-class between him and the rest of the division.

While Fury has been vulnerable to the right-hand thrown by boxers with an orthodox stance, the writing could be on the wall for him. The straight left-hand from Usyk's southpaw stance could cause Fury's fragile scar tissue around the right eye all sorts of problems. Could it be the shot that even forces him to have to get up from the canvas yet again?

The odds

I don't think there is any point dwelling on Fury's performance in the Ngannou fight in terms of assessing the Usyk fight, but I do think it has made a significant difference to the betting markets since then.

Firstly, the public perception of Fury's poor performance was so strong that the odds have slowly been drifting away from him. This sentiment was strong enough that in the aftermath of the AJ-Nagannou fight in March, Fury was briefly an odds-against outsider in the betting against Usyk on the exchanges (where 2.26 was reached).

The second significant impact of the Fury-Ngannou fight was a massive overreaction to the boxing prowess of the MMA star. Before being demolished by Anthony Joshua in the Knockout-Chaos Saudi bill, Ngannou was just a 2/1 outsider, something we felt was entirely wrong in his second professional fight.

With Fury apparently struggling to get past Ngannou and AJ annihilating him a few months later, the odds for the Fury and Usyk are now a perfect 50:50, the bookmakers have it as a genuine pick'em fight.

Current odds, at time of writing [14 April 2024]

When this fight was first mooted to take place in 2023, the American sportsbooks opened with Fury as a -250 favourite. That US money line of -250 means that Fury was a 2/5 favourite in traditional fractional odds (or 1.40 in decimal odds).

At these prices, my pick would have been Usyk without hesitation. I have long said that Usyk could beat Fury in an upset victory. But in a pick'em fight, I am reluctantly forced to reconsider. Usyk is 37 and therefore very close to the end of his time near the peak of his powers.

Fury is younger at 35, but after his trilogy with Wilder and his well-documented issues with alcohol and cocaine, and gaining so much weight during his peak years when he weighed over 28 stone (400 lbs.), he has more miles on the clock than Usyk. The Ukranian is never far away from fighting weight and doesn't let himself go between fights.

Predictions

If readers of this preview are convinced they know how this is going to go, I would not try to change their minds. It is understandable that Fury-backers and Usyk-backers will be very confident about their chances on 18 May. It really is a fantastic and intriguing match-up.

I think it is a distance fight.

It is currently best-priced at 4/9 (1.44 in decimal odds) to go the full 12 rounds. If Fury wasn't susceptible to cuts over that right eye, I would back the Fight To Go The Distance at anything around 1/2 (1.50). But that cut risk is too high, which makes the odds-on too short for me on this occasion.

If the opening prices which had Usyk as the outsider at around 2/1 (3.00) were still available I would have no hesitation pulling the trigger and backing him to score the upset win.

But at a best-price of even-money (2.00) for both men, I have been forced to Lay Usyk on the exchanges at prices around 2.15. By laying Usyk, I am backing Fury and covering the draw at the same time. But I have very little confidence in this one.

If Fury is to win, he will need to use his size, weight and reach to keep Usyk out of range. Whatever Fury (or Frank Warren) says about winning in "explosive style", ignore it. Fury will be aware that he needs to protect the eye and to take this fight long.

Usyk is sometimes a slow starter and I expect to see a cagey fight in the opening rounds. If the draw is 18/1 now, I can see it being less than 10/1 by the time we get into the second half of the bout.

In terms of the business-side of this fight, one has to feel that the organisers would like to see a Fury win. It could be a case that Usyk will need to win by scores of 118-110 just to get a split-decision. Of course, if he can exploit the cut and get to Fury late on, he can render the scorecards irrelevant.

Normally I wouldn't back the draw in a 12-round fight at anything under 20/1 but this fight really is an anything-could-happen affair.

That is why it is a mixed message for this one. I want to see Usyk win and I can see how he does it. Importantly though, I feel the value in the betting markets has now moved to Tyson Fury. But for this preview I am picking the draw at 18/1 for small stakes.