‘The Gypsy King’ didn’t hold back when comparing the two as the Brit prepares to take on Usyk once again this weekend as he looks to avoid back-to-back defeats
Tyson Fury has revealed he doesn’t fear Oleksandr Usyk as much as he did Deontay Wilder.
‘The Gypsy King’ is currently preparing to take on the Ukrainian once again on Saturday night as he looks to level the series. Usyk became the first man to beat Fury in a professional setting earlier this year, winning via split decision.
Over the years, Fury, 36, has been involved in many iconic wars – with the three fights with Wilder springing to mind. After suffering a jaw-dropping knockdown in the 12th round of the first encounter, Fury eventually went the distance and fought to a draw with ‘The Bronze Bomber’. However, the Brit was able to knock his long-time rival out in the next two fights.
While the second clash was one-sided, Wilder dropped Fury a few times in the third fight and had his moments before ‘The Gypsy King’ went on to score a knockout in the championship rounds. When comparing the American with Usyk, Fury insists ‘The Bronze Bomber’ was able to cause issues at any given point.
“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,” said Fury.
“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?”
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Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are set to lock horns again on December 21 with the Brit attempting to avenge his defeat by the Ukrainian in May. Victory for Fury could also set up a huge domestic showdown with bitter rival Anthony Joshua next year
“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.”