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Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
Tyson Fury vows to be “more focused” during his unified heavyweight championship rematch with Oleksandr Usyk on Dec. 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he told ESPN on Wednesday.
Fury, 36, played to the crowd and taunted Usyk multiple times during the first half of their May fight, which Usyk won via split decision.
The pivotal moment of the bout came in Round 9, when Ukraine’s Usyk unloaded 14 unanswered punches that resulted in a knockdown and a 10-8 round that was the difference on the scorecards.
England’s Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) was ahead on all three cards heading into the eighth round. And Fury believes he deserved the decision after 12 rounds, too. He said he has rewatched the fight literally “hundreds of times,” but he also knows the fight was close enough.
“I always scored myself winning it, so, but I’m not a judge, am I?” said Fury, ESPN’s No. 2 heavyweight. “… I haven’t made any adjustments and that’s the truth. The only adjustments will be on fight night where I keep more focused and less clowning in the ring.
“I did a lot of showboating, a lot of messing around — more than I’ve ever done before, actually — against supposedly my toughest opponent. I did a lot of f—ing around and it ended up costing me.”
Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) is ESPN’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer and No. 1 heavyweight. The Olympic gold medalist was also the undisputed champion at cruiserweight before he collected all four titles with his win over Fury.
Fury is no stranger to return bouts. “The Gypsy King” fought Derek Chisora three times — a decision win followed by two TKO victories. His far more noteworthy trilogy, of course, was against Deontay Wilder.
Fury was floored twice by Wilder during their 2018 meeting that was ruled a draw, only for Fury to batter Wilder en route to a seventh-round TKO in the rematch. The third fight was more competitive; Fury was knocked down twice in Round 4 but scored a spectacular KO of Wilder in Round 11.
“I’ve been in this position before,” Fury said. “… I don’t really dwell on the past too much. I just get on with my job and train for this next fight and put in a good performance and get the victory back and then hopefully we’ll do a rematch again and that’ll be a trilogy. I’ve had three trilogies before.”
The trilogy bout with Wilder was named ESPN’s KO of the Year and Fight of the Year for 2021.
And now, Fury has a great shot at Fight of the Year honors one more time as his May fight with Usyk is the front-runner for the award.
“It’s a big fight,” Fury said. “Obviously it’s a massive, massive fight for both of us. And it’s going to be a tough fight either way, and obviously I want to win badly because obviously I want to avenge my only loss. And it means a lot because I get the rematch straight away rather than having to chase someone around for the rematch.”
The first fight also took place in Riyadh, and it was important to Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, to ensure the rematch happened straight away.
“This is what Riyadh Season is doing: delivering a great fight again in seven months,” Alalshikh told ESPN on Wednesday. “And this is good for boxing.”
Alalshikh, like Fury, believed it was important to deliver the rematch without any interim fights for a multitude of reasons, namely injuries or an upset loss.
“The first fight was too close and we don’t have time,” Alalshikh said. “Usyk is 38 and Fury is 36. Why would we wait if everything is right? This is our way to do business. We will continue to deliver to the market great fights.”