Dillian Whyte has been up close and personal with Tyson Fury in the boxing ring and has now made his prediction for the rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
‘The Body Snatcher’ and ‘The Gypsy King’ came together to contest the WBC and The Ring heavyweight champion in April 2022 in front of a then-record crowd at Wembley Stadium.
Whyte was the mandatory challenger and confused everyone by coming out in the southpaw stance early on. He failed to properly establish himself in the fight and was cut in the fourth round after a clash of heads.
Towards the end of the sixth, he was caught with a jab and then a fierce uppercut which sent him to the canvas and unable to recover was counted out with one second of the round remaining.
Speaking to Sky Sports Boxing, Whyte has suggested that Fury could be knocked out for the first time in his career when he rematches Usyk on December 21.
“In heavyweight boxing, you’re always one punch away.”
In the first fight for undisputed honours back in May, Usyk did catch Fury and sent him back to the ropes for an eight count before taking the win on points, and Whyte thinks Fury was lucky to escape.
“He caught him pretty good. In some places in the world, they would have stopped that fight. But because of Fury’s nature and the fact he shows that he gets up and he can keep going, that’s why they didn’t stop it. But I think Usyk can stop him.”
He then credited Fury with just as much chance of stopping the Ukrainian.
“He seems to be one of those guys, when the pressure is on, he shows up. For him to beat Usyk, I think he needs to use his size. He has to be more aggressive and he needs to push the fight. He can’t stay on the back foot because Usyk is a tactical genius.
“He put a lot of pressure on Fury on the front foot, which we had never seen him do before, so Tyson needs to smother him and fight him like he fought Steve Cunningham. I think he needs to apply those sort of tactics.”
Fury will indeed hope to inflict the same damage on Usyk in their rematch as he did on Deontay Wilder when he stopped the American in the second two of their three world title fights.
