By Charles Brun: Trainer Ben Davison says Tyson Fury can’t afford to “recklessly” charge forward without getting picked apart by the quicker & more agile Oleksandr Usyk when the two fight in March, April, or whenever.
Davison feels that Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), although not noted for his punching power, has enough pop in his shots to give WBC heavyweight champion Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) problems.
Former cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham has dropped Fury in the past, and Usyk’s power is similar to his.
Davison says that Fury’s best path to a victory is to use his size to maul the smaller Usyk in the clinch, wrestle & lean on him to wear him out.
That is to say, Fury must fight the way he’s been in the last several years since teaming up with American trainer Sugarhill Steward, who has turned him into a mauler.
Fury has been able to get away with the mauling in his fights with Deontay Wilder, Dillian Whyte & Derek Chisora because none of those fighters had an inside game or the sense enough to know that they could brain him with short punches while being held.
A smart heavyweight like Usyk will light Fury up with short clubbing shots to the head each time he begins mauling to keep him honest and not resort to this borderline cheating tactic.
Of course, that won’t prevent Fury from resorting to throwing illegal rabbit punches. It’ll take the referee to do his job to police that activity from Fury to make sure he fights a clean fight.
Hopefully, Fury keeps it clean and doesn’t start with throwing rabbit shots left & right out of frustration at being foiled by Usyk from his usual mauling activities.
If Fury can’t wrestle & lean on Usyk, he’s in for a long night because he’s quick enough to beat the Ukrainian talent from the outside and will get picked apart.
The ONLY route for victory for Fury is to find a way to implement his mauling tactics and hope that Usyk hasn’t found a method to negate this ugly-to-watch style.
“It’s not as simple as that because if you recklessly just run at someone and you think, ‘Oh, you’re small.’ He’s not a small guy, Oleksandr Usyk,” said Ben Davison to Queensbury Promotions about Tyson Fury not being able to bum rush Oleksandr Usyk.
“He punches hard enough, and with any man that size, he’s capable of hurting someone. So there has to be an element of respect [from Fury]. With someone of that skill set, you can’t just run at someone.
“That’s what Joshua’s issue was. ‘You shouldn’t box him. You need to stick it on him.’ ‘I can’t stick it on him because I’m going to run into something, but I think Tyson needs to press the action and make Usyk work harder than what he’d like to work. Cut the ring off and break him down and wear him down bit by bit.
“Eventually, when he’s close enough, Usyk is very good in a clinch, but Tyson is a ginormous man who is good in a clinch himself, which I’m sure Usyk will be very well prepared for. I’m sure he’ll be doing some form of wrestling and preparing for someone that size to be leaning on top of him.
“It’s very difficult like Tyson once they get up close and are able to do that. But he won’t be able to come out in round one and just jump on top of Usyk. There will be steps that will have to be taken in the early stage of the fight for it to eventually get to that point.
“The size will be a factor if Tyson is able to implement the size. The way to implement the size is to do the right things to get close. Personally, I think if Tyson tries to play the long game, Usyk will work him up and down, body, body, head, switching it up and making it hard to predict, and that might push Tyson back. In which case, it’ll be hard for Tyson to implement his size.
“It depends on what tactics Tyson employs whether the size will have an impact as an advantage for him. I think if he stands off Usyk, who’s lack of size and height disadvantage will be an advantage to Usyk,” said Davison.