The Fury undercard:
In two bouts not shown, British featherweight Isaac Lowe, (24-2 ranked #47), won a 10 round decision over Afghan Hasibullah Ahmadi (16-1, ranked #155) and Ukrainian Daniel Lapin (9-0 with 3KOs, #59) disposed of Portugal's Octavio Pudivitr (9-1 #232) in round 1.
A New Zealander, David Nykia (7-0 with 6KOs, #53), whose name is "Mr. Nice Guy" was not nice to Germany's Michael Steiz (12-0 with 10KOs over guys who must not have been very good, #112), knocking him out in 4 rounds. 40 year old Serge Kovalev, (35-4, 29-3, not rated due to inactivity), is trying it at heavyweight and, good luck with that. He spent ten rounds eating leather from Robin Sirwan Safar of Sweden, (16-0 with 2Ks but also inactive), and was knocked down in the last round but rose to hear the final bell and hopefully that's it for him. I missed the next one while in the bathroom: UK Lightweight Mark Chamberlain (15-0, 11KO #9) destroyed Nigerian Joshua Oluwaseun Wahab (23-1, not rated due to inactivity), who was inactive after the first round:
JOSHUA Wahab was left needing oxygen inside the ring after a brutal first round knockout by Mark Chamberlain. The Nigerian was torn apart in the opening minutes of their bout on the Tyson Fury vs O…
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A 19 year old British heavyweight, Moses Itauwa, (8-0 with 6KO #99), who has declared his intent to break Mike Tyson's record for the youngest heavyweight champion, drilled Kazakhstan's Ilja Mezencev (25-3 #193), who looked like a bar bouncer or maybe the guy he bounced. Somewhat older heavyweights Frank Sanchez from Cuba and Agit Kabayev, who fights out of German were the next bout. Both were 24-0. Sanchez had 17KOs and Kabayev 16. Kabayev was ranked #5 and Sanchez #9. The big difference was that Sanchez had a knee wrapped and seemed unable to move effectively. He tried counter-punching off the ropes but it didn't work and Kabayev, a feeling out first round, dominated the rest of the fight and knocked Sanchez out in the 7th round on a punch to the belly button. I'd never seen that before. Is that a vulnerable spot?.
A Belfast junior lightweight named Anthony Calace (21-1 #26) was behind a Welshman, Joe Cordina (17-0 #7), until the third round when Cordina hit him off the break, (the ref was trying to control the fight just with verbal commands and didn't step between the fighters). Calace got mad and got going, winning the remainder of the fight big and scoring an 8th round knockout.
Then came a rematch of Aussie cruiserweight Jai Opetaia, (24-0 with 19KOs #3) and Latvian Mairis Briedis (28-2 with 20KOs #8). The first one, on 7/2/22 ended with Opetiaia barely surviving the 10th round to win the decision. This time, he dominated until late in the fight, breaking Briedis' nose. Then Breidis again rallied and broke Opetaia's nose. The commentators said blood was all over their shirts. But Opetaia won again.
I'm not sure I saw anybody in the prelims that was ready to set the world on fire but the main event sure did. They say in boxing that the good big man will always beat the good little man and that led me to believe that Tyson Fury would defeat Oleksandr Usyk, who had taken the huge leap from cruiserweight to heavyweight, (really, they should be the superheavyweight division) and twice beaten Anthony Joshua for a couple of the alphabet soup titles. Now he was fighting Tyson Fury for the rest of them and the 'linear' title. Uysk was 6-3 and had built himself up to 223.5 pounds with a 78 inch reach. Fury, 6-9 and a slim, (for him) 262 with an 85 inch reach. Fury is an elusive fighter on defense with enough power to take out most opponents after punishing them, although he's not a one-punch knockout guy. He has a good, power jab that sets up his other punches, although he likes to mug for the crowd and suddenly throw a haymaker form an angle the opponent doesn't expect.
I hate the first couple of rounds of most big fights. Not much happens as the fighters are feeling each other out, yet they can determine the outcome if the fight goes to the judges. I grade them for Fury as he kept snapping hi jab out and Usyk was trying to figure out a way to get around it. Usyk did get the best punch of those first two rounds in with a left hook early in the second but I though Fury won the rounds. The scorer for the TV broadcast gave them to Usyk.
Then Tyson started to get really comfortable. He froze Usyk with piston-like jabs and dug right hands to the body and uppercuts. This won him round 3-6. Usyk was rocked several times and it looked as if Fury was going to knock him out. But Fury played to the crowd too much, dropping his hands and sticking his chin out or retreating into a corner with his hands on the ropes and suddenly throwing wide combinations. The problem with this is that if you stop doing it, it sends the message that your opponent has now earned your respect.
Fury clearly felt he was going to knock Usyk out and might already have done so if he hadn't clowned so much. But Usyk had begun to find the range and began to turn the fight around in the 7th. Fury never got control of the bout back after that. In the 9th, Usyk landed a big left hook that sent Fury sprawling on the ropes. He didn't go down, as he did twice to Wilder, but he was hearing the birdies sing. Usyk literally batted him from ring post to ring post in the final half minute of that round. The ref was on the verge of stopping it.
But Fury is famous for his ability to recover and he came out for the 10th able to at least move and defend himself. But his jab was much weaker, more of a defensive punch and sometimes just a range-finder. He kept sticking it out there and occasionally throwing his stronger rights but never got the fight going back his way. Usyk was not able to get him in trouble again but his punches pushed Fury backwards and Fury's punches didn't do the same to him.
I had it 95-94 for Fury going into the last two rounds but the TV people had Usyk ahead because of those first two rounds. It came down to the last two rounds, where I though Fury landed more punches because was jabbing more, trying to get his offense going again, but Usyk landed the better punches. I decided to grade them even, 10-10, giving Fury the win on my card. One judge had it 114-113 for Fury. the other two had it for Usyk, 114-113 and 115-112. They posted only the total punch count stats and Usyk was 170/407 for 42%. Fury was 157/496, 32%. I don't know the stats for the jabs. probably more of them were blocked than I realized. Of course most of the punches landed in rounds 7-10 were Usyk's and practically all of them in round 9. The good little man had beaten the good big man.
There's a clause for an immediate rematch and both fighters agreed to it. The last image was of
Wladimir Klitschko holding up a Ukrainian flag. Perhaps the good little country will beat the good big country, there, too.
www.espn.com
