Oleksandr Usyk looks bulked up in training for his fight against Tyson Fury next month on May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) has put on muscle, and he looks bigger than he did last August in his successful title defense against Daniel Dubois in Wroclaw, Poland.
Fury’s Size: His Only Real Weapon?
Usyk has no choice but to add size to his battle against the 270+ lb WBC champion Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) at the Kingdom Arena.
Even if Fury does come in lighter for this fight than the 277 lbs that he came in for his non-title fight against Francis Ngannou last October, he’s still likely to be in the upper 260s, and that’s a lot of weight for the 220+ lb Usyk to be giving away.
Fury can’t punch, though, and the only benefit that he gets from being so heavy is being able to use the size when he grabs his smaller opponents and leans on them and mauls.
He’s going to try and use his 50+ lb weight advantage to bully Usyk, and look to wear him down the way he did against Deontay Wilder.
Fury will likely mix in some roughhouse tactics in the form of rabbit punches, low blows, and some elbows to wear down Usyk. It would be a good idea for Usyk not to count on the referee to police the fouling by Fury because he’s not likely to receive any sympathy if he’s getting bullied on May 18th.
In Fury’s last fight against the 272-lb Ngannou, he coouldn’t do that because he was too strong, and much more powerful with non-fat. In that fight, we saw that Fury looked limited once he couldn’t use his size to lean on his opponent to drain them.
Fury’s Best Days Are Ancient History
The Gypsy King has become lazy and too dependent on using his size to lean. Without that option, he couldn’t revert to being the mobile fighter that he once was nine years ago when he upset Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 because he’s too old now.
Tyson is expected to come in this fight lighter, but that might not work for him because he’s not going to become faster, and it won’t help him with his mobility because he’s an ancient 35.
