Usyk beats Fury to unite heavyweight titles, first in four belts era
Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine defeated Tyson Fury of Britain by split
Decision (115-112, 113-113, and 114-113) after 12 rounds in the heavyweight boxing fight at at kindom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, On Satureday.
Usyk added Fury’s World Boxing Council (WBC) title as his fourth heavyweight championship belt after his own World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) titles. He became the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999 and the first one of such during the four-belt era.
The 37-year-old Ukrainian is the first boxer to hold all four major heavyweight belts at the same time and the first undisputed champ since the end of Lennox Lewis’ reign in April 2000.
Usyk got the better of the opening rounds before Fury hit his stride in the fourth, engaging in some showmanship as he started to catch Usyk with vicious body shots, but the Ukrainian battled back with several stinging reminders of his power.
“It’s a big opportunity for me, for my family, for my country, for history,” Usyk said after the fight. “It’s a great day.” He outscored Fury in all of the eighth, ninth and 10th rounds, including landing 14 punches on his opponent who slumped into the ropes at the end of Round 9. Though Fury bounced back to win the final round unanimously, his rally came too late.
“I believe I won the fight, but I’m not going to sit here and cry and make excuses,” Fury said after suffering his first professional loss. “I believe he won a few of the rounds, but I won the majority of them. What can you do? We both put on a good fight, the best we could do. … People are siding with the country at war. But make no mistake, I won that fight … and I’ll be back. We’ve got a rematch clause.”
The rematch between the two is scheduled to take place on October 12 in Riyadh again. Fury will have the chance to win the WBC belt back after losing it for the first time in nine years. He has another super fight against his compatriot Anthony Joshua awaiting him in the first quarter of 2025.
It took four stitches to close a cut over Usyk’s right eye, according to his promoter K2 Promotions’ Alexander Krassyuk. He was headed to a local hospital after the fight for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for a possible broken jaw.
Source(s) and Courtesy: CGTN