Tyson Fury has confirmed he’ll rematch Oleksandr Usyk later this year after suffering his first career defeat at the hands of the Ukrainian – and one former foe says we must see the ‘old’ Fury if he has any chance of evening the score.
Fury and Usyk put on an enthralling back and forth encounter with both men having controlling spells in the fight, but it was the former undisputed cruiserweight champion who won a split decision, becoming the first man to ever hold all four heavyweight belts at the same time.
Going into the contest it was public knowledge that there was a contractual rematch clause and, just days after the fight, Fury’s promoter Frank Warren announced that his man would be taking up this option.
One fighter who know’s ‘The Gypsy King’ better than most is three-time former opponent, Derek Chisora.
Speaking to SecondsOut, ‘Del Boy’ was full of praise for Usyk and had no doubt the right man won.
“The guy has won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics and hasn’t been beaten since. Unified the cruiserweight division, won the Muhammad Ali trophy, came up to heavyweight and destroyed everybody at heavyweight. I’ll be honest with you the guy’s a beast, he’s come to the United Kingdom and he schooled us, proper messed us up.
The right man won, let’s not take anything from Oleksandr Usyk, the right man won. I knew it was going to be a split decision and the moment it went to a split decision Oleksandr was going to win it.”
Chisora made it clear that Fury must return to his ‘old self’ if he is to avenge his sole loss.
“We got to get the old Tyson Back. I want to get the old Tyson back, that mean guy, right now Tyson’s just too soft.
The Tyson we saw in Vegas [against Deontay Wilder] was a bad a**.”
The Usyk-Fury rematch is scheduled to take place at the end of this year in Saudi Arabia.
