Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are getting ready for their big rematch. The two top heavyweights will face off again in December in Saudi Arabia.
Fury and Usyk first fought in May. Usyk won that fight, handing Fury his first loss and becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion. He added Fury's WBC belt to the WBA and WBO titles he already owned.
Usyk's win in May wasn't his first time as an undisputed champion. He held all the belts at cruiserweight back in 2018 before moving up to heavyweight. Since then, he's been unbeatable in the bigger division.
Fury says he didn't take the first fight seriously enough. He claims he was having too much fun and took his eye off the ball. Now, he's determined to set things right in the rematch.
Former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, who lost to Fury in 2015, shared his thoughts on the upcoming fight with rtfight.com. He sees two possible outcomes:
"We can't look into the future — only my brother can do that. But I'm confident that the next fight between Fury and Usyk will either be short because Oleksandr will knock Tyson out, or it will be extremely challenging for both athletes — even tougher than the first bout."
Klitschko also reflected on the first fight between Fury and Usyk:
"We saw that up until the ninth round, the fight was very tough. But I'm proud of Oleksandr. He achieved everything at cruiserweight, and when he moved up to heavyweight, I had questions about how he would handle it, and so did he. It's a completely different environment there — the size, the weight."
The former champion had high praise for his fellow Ukrainian:
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"Usyk will go down in history as one of the most unique athletes in boxing."
The winner of this rematch could face the victor of Anthony Joshua vs Daniel Dubois next. That fight would be for all the marbles in the heavyweight division.