Hyper-Focused Heavyweight Tyson Fury Only Has Eyes for Oleksandr Usyk

The British fighter looks to rebound from his first career loss to the reigning champion.

Fury-Usyk I ended with the Ukrainian fighter (right) winning by split decision May 18. / Richard Pelham/Getty Images

Tyson Fury has trained for fights coming off wins. Coming off a draw. Coming off tough matchups, like the five-knockdown, trilogy-completing win over Deontay Wilder. Coming off easy ones, like the one-sided whipping he put on Derek Chisora a year later. He has trained while battling mental illness, long layoffs and overwhelming depression.

A loss? Never. Until now.

“Doesn’t change a thing,” says Fury. “All feels the same.”

Fury is peering down through a camera phone, a thick salt-and-pepper beard filling up half the frame. It’s a noticeable change from last May, when a clean-shaven Fury lost a split decision to Oleksandr Usyk. It is, Fury insists, the only difference you will see in him Saturday, when he meets Usyk in a rematch.

“I didn’t feel like I lost the fight,” says Fury. “I didn’t get the decision. It’s opinionated bulls--- , really. I had no bruises on me. I got me money. I went home.”

Fury did lose the fight, the first of his professional career. He boxed well early, using his superior size to keep Usyk on the outside. Usyk’s pressure, though, was unrelenting. In the ninth, Usyk uncorked a straight left that sent Fury bouncing off the ropes. The follow-up flurry had Fury careening around the ring, resulting in a knockdown that, when the scorecards were revealed, cost him the fight.

“That 10–8 round,” Fury laments. “That was the difference.”

The competitiveness of the first fight has convinced Fury that he doesn’t need to change much for the rematch. His team remains intact. SugarHill Steward returns as his head trainer. Andy Lee will be in the corner to assist. There’s some uncertainty as to the role his father, John, will play—Fury says he will be in the corner while Steward suggested this week that he would not—but Fury says he is comfortable however it shakes out.

“Nothing about him surprised me,” says Fury. “The only thing was he was much easier to land on than I thought he would be. He didn't do anything different than I thought I would do.”

To focus, Fury moved training camp for this fight to Malta, isolating himself from friends and family. “Hitting him more,” says Fury, will be his most significant adjustment. He increased his strength training and ratcheted up his sparring. Those that have known him longest, from his manager, Spencer Brown, to his promoter, Frank Warren, describe a fighter singularly focused.

“He’s switched on to one thing,” said Warren. “That’s beating Usyk.”

Still, something about Fury is just … different. There’s a seriousness to him. The bravado that defined one of the more entertaining heavyweights is largely gone. No loud trash talk. No outlandish wardrobes. No clowning during fight week. On Wednesday, Fury’s open workout ended after less than a minute.

This was the entirety of Tyson Fury’s public workout here in Riyadh. In May, he shadow boxed and hit the mitts for 10-15 minutes. Afterward, all he would say is that he’s here to dole out “damage” and “pain” Saturday vs. Oleksandr Usyk. pic.twitter.com/KvWtV6Ygrq

— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) December 18, 2024

The stakes are certainly high in this fight. At 36, Fury is in the twilight of his career. A win would propel Fury into a third fight with Usyk that, backed by Saudi Arabia, would be worth tens of millions of dollars. A loss could send him into retirement. 

But is there more? Fury revealed this week that he has not spoken to his wife, Paris, in three months. He’s been boxing 16 years as a professional and trained to be one for years before that. Hard-fought battles inside the ring and out have taken a toll. At some point, for every fighter, the competitive fire burns out.

Fury insists he is not there yet. “I'm a different breed to [other] men,” says Fury. “Being 36 is a whipper snapper for me. I'm just a young boy at that age. I’m not what I was at 22. But then again, who is what they were at 22? Was Muhammad Ali the same man at 36 as he was at 25? No, you just got to keep going and do the best you can and adjust. Train smarter, not harder, and that's exactly what you do. You adjust.”

“I've had more drive the last, say, six years than I've ever had in my life because I've got everything there is to have as a human being. I don't have to worry about paying bills. I can just focus on training full time and just being an animal all the time rather than going to a job, having a nine-to-five and then concentrating on just boxing as a secondary. It's what I do. I eat, sleep, train, repeat. I live and breathe boxing. That's it.”

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Fury will need to be at his best. Usyk will. At 37, Usyk has established himself as a generational great. He’s been undisputed champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the first man to accomplish either in the four-belt era. His six-fight resume at heavyweight includes wins over Fury, Daniel Dubois and two against Anthony Joshua. His motivation is his country, Ukraine, the war-torn nation that gets a spotlight on it whenever Usyk fights.

Any slippage in Fury will likely be exposed. Fury sees this fight as a new chapter. Beat Usyk, beat him again, take out Joshua in a long-anticipated matchup, maybe square off with Dubois. Retirement? “No retirement,” says Fury. “There's a lot more stupid things that a man could be doing.” Any skeptics will soon be silenced.

“I’m absolutely going to annihilate this f---er,” Fury said.

Indeed, it could be a new beginning. Or it could be the end.

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