HE entered the ring dressed as Bad Santa but Tyson Fury suffered season’s beatings from the finest heavyweight on the planet.
Oleksandr Usyk completed his demolition derby of Britain’s heavyweight hopes by defeating the Gypsy King for a second time, just as he had done to Anthony Joshua.
ReutersTyson Fury renewed his rivalry with Oleksandr Usyk in a second successive Saudi showdown[/caption]
GettyThe Gypsy King suffered a split decision defeat in their first meeting in May[/caption]
APFury, 36, was hellbent on exacting revenge on the slick southpaw in their second Riyadh rumble[/caption]
ReutersBut he suffered a second straight agonising defeat to the slick southpaw[/caption]
Throw in a knock-out of current IBF champion Daniel Dubois and Usyk has confirmed himself as undoubtedly the greatest heavyweight of his generation.
Usyk made light of a four-stone weight disadvantage as his superior footwork, hand-speed and ringcraft earned him a unanimous points win to back up the split decision he earned here in his original meeting with Fury in May.
In the wee small hours of an Arabian night, the 36-year-old Fury’s hopes of ripping away Usyk’s WBA, WBC and WBO belts barely got going.
Fury’s beard had caused pre-fight controversy but he lacked razor-sharpness inside and outside of the ring as Usyk’s flawless record remained intact.
He performed his ring walk in a Father Christmas-style red robe with a white trim but his festive season is going be lacking in comfort and joy after this schooling.
Amid the myriad minarets and the vast shiny shopping mauls of the Saudi capital, the Kingdom Arena is a featureless box.
But Fury, especially, it was a place of destiny. Would he retreat from here as a three-time world heavyweight champion or as a man with no obvious fighting future?
Fury had rocked the boxing world to win world titles on two previous occasions – toppling Wladimir Klitschko after almost a decade on the heavyweight throne, then demolishing the unbeaten record of the explosive Deontay Wilder.
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REUTERSTyson Fury thought he’d done enough to reclaim the unified heavyweight titles[/caption]
PABut the judges awarded Usyk the victory via 116-112 scorecards[/caption]
This, though, was his toughest test beyond doubt.
Usyk was unblemished as a professional, having unified both the cruiserweight and heavyweight crowns.
Usyk was unblemished as a professional, having unified both the cruiserweight and heavyweight crowns.
Both a cunning boxer and a fierce fighter, motivated not just by his own status but as the sporting flag-bearer of his occupied homeland.
And despite the split decision from the judges in May, there was little doubt that the Ukrainian should have been a clear, unanimous winner.
That had been a classic encounter, between two unbeaten fighters at the top of their games, when every major heavyweight belt had been up for grabs for the first time this century.
Since that original bout, boxing being boxing, Usyk had been stripped of his IBF title, now held by Dubois.
But even the young Brit’s Wembley demolition job on Joshua couldn’t detract from the fact that Usyk and Fury are the two pre-eminent heavyweights of their era.
Fury arrived with his controversial beard still intact, despite the protests of the Usyk camp.
It was a beard you could lose a badger in. Perhaps the bushiest beard seen on a major British sporting figure since WG Grace was scoring runs for England in the Victorian age.
The undercard had been short on quality, thrills or sensible judging and it was 1.30am local time before the main protagonists entered the arena.
There were plenty of empty seats inside the 26,000-capacity venue and nothing like the fervour of an authentic big fight night at Wembley or in Las Vegas.
But those days are largely gone with the Saudis controlling elite boxing and gearing up to host a World Cup and an Olympics in the 2030s.
Still after a live drummer had battered his way through Eye of the Tiger, ringmaster Michael Buffer declared the party started.
And Fury, dressed in a Santa robe, strode forward to the strains of All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Fury had clowned around in that previous meeting seven months ago, dropping his guard, sticking out his tongue.
PATyson Fury cut a dejected figure after the result of the right was read out[/caption]
Fury wanted to look at the scorecards shortly after hearing the resultTNT SPORTS
Fury was comforted by wife Paris as he made his way backstageTNT SPORTS
During the build-up, he’d been in deadly serious form, yet he was a piece of pantomime from a man who has always been able to switch effortlessly from vaudeville to violence and back again.
Usyk, in traditional Ukrainian fighting get-up, was in no mood for such frivolity.
Before the first bell, Fury was goofing again, goggle-eyed and blowing kisses.
The first was cagey and even but the second was Fury’s as he found his range with the jab then rocked the champion with a big right late on.
With precious few Brits have made the journey to a bone-dry country during Christmas week, what crowd noise there was, favoured Usyk.
The Ukrainian was more fluent in the third, setting about his work like a lumberjack trying to fell a mighty oak.
The fourth was lively – Usyk inflicting pain with a combination to the body but Fury pinning him back later on.
Usyk’s footwork was superior but when Fury landed, it told. In the fifth, the Brit delivered a vicious uppercut and then propelled the champion backwards with a couple of body shots.
Yet Usyk is obdurate and he won the sixth with a couple of clubbing lefts, Fury looking unsettled and wild.
It was impossibly close to call, Usyk’s speed giving him a slight edge in the near-silence of a largely unappreciative crowd.
The sterile atmosphere better suited the cool-headed Ukrainian and late in the ninth he rocked Fury with a powerful left, after the Brit appeared to deliver a low blow.
Fury’s extra weight and the cumulative effect of Usyk’s body shots were taking their toll and the Gypsy King was tiring alarmingly by round ten.
In the penultimate round a left hook rattled Fury’s skull and while the Brit landed a few desperate shots, Usyk finished up looking the more assured fighter by far.
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