Alex Krassyuk says Oleksandr Usyk has already settled on the new date for the fight with Tyson Fury, and it’ll be announced next week in late February.
Krassyuk states that the main focus is to ensure the undisputed heavyweight championship fight with WBC champ Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) happens with IBF/WBA/WBO Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs).
Alex would have preferred the original December 23rd date, but he points out that when a fighter isn’t ready to go, “you cannot make him.”
Fury’s team chose to move the date due to the long training camp he’d put in for his fight with Francis Ngannou, and they wanted him to rest up before he began preparation for Usyk.
Tyson needs to control his food intake
It’s essential that Fury not let his weight get out of control while resting because even with a 12 to 14-week camp, he’s not going to be able to trim off 50-100 lbs without it slowing him down. Fury looked huge before starting camp for the Ngannou fight.
As we saw in Fury’s match with Ngannou, he still carried a lot of fat around his midsection, even though he’d gotten his weight down to 277 lbs.
It won’t help Fury if he pigs out on pies, cakes, cookies & candy while resting up before beginning camp. If he starts camp as fat as a hog, he’s not going to get off all the weight by the time he faces Usyk in February.
For the Usyk fight, Fury should set a target goal of coming into the contest in the mid-250s, considering that he’s not going to be able to use his bulk to lean on him like he’d done against Deontay Wilder. Usyk won’t stand still, allowing Fury to grab him all night like Wilder had done.
Fury-Usyk new date
“He’s absolutely ready to go, and he knows how to deal with Tyson. That’s why I feel confident; that’s why I feel relaxed about this fight,” said Alex Krassyuk to Boxing News on the Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight undisputed clash.
Krassyuk shouldn’t be so confident about Usyk because looked terrible in his last fight against Daniel Dubois last August, getting dropped by a body shot in the fifth and putting on what many felt was a theatrical acting job by feigning that it was from a low blow.
On replay, it was a beltline shot from Dubois and caught Usyk when he wasn’t ready. The boxing public saw it as a clear body shot, which should have resulted in Usyk being counted out, but the referee ruled as a low blow.
“The only thing that I’m really concerned about is to make this fight happen,” said Krassyuk. “In the contract, it was December 23, but it’s a matter of common sense and common reason. If a fighter isn’t ready to go, you cannot make him.
“We would rather stay flexible, stay relaxed. We have settled already on the new date, and next week, we’re going to announce it; hopefully, of course. Yeah,” said Krassyuk.
Hopefully, this date doesn’t get pushed back, too, because the fans are already getting tired of the Fury-Usyk match-up, and many of them no longer view them as the top two fighters in the heavyweight division.
They view Usyk & Fury as two older fighters in their mid-30s, just meeting for a payday, courtesy of the Saudis, and just a cash-out for their retirement. It won’t be surprising if both guys retire after 2024.
“Karma in action,” said Krassyuk when asked about his view on Tyson Fury’s fight against Francis Nganou. “When you treat your opponent with disrespect when you overlook your opponent, sometimes s**t happens. That was an unlucky night for our guy.
“From a boxing point of view, Tyson Fury won the fight. The fight is scored by the rounds. So, according to my card, he was a couple of rounds ahead, and that’s normal. He lost a couple of rounds. One round, he definitely lost for having a knockdown, but in general, he won.”
From the judging point of view, Fury won the fight with Ngannou, but not from the fan’s viewpoint, which is far more important. When a fighter is seen as being a gift decision, their popularity with the fans disappears, resulting in fewer PPV buys & ticket sales.
“The emotional impression was an absolute underdog, an MMA fighter with zero chance suddenly fires up the world. So now Tyson Fury is in the position of being frustrated about what the world has about him,” said Krassyuk.
Usyk thinks Fury was playing game
“The only man who doesn’t trust Tyson Fury is Oleksandr Usyk because he still thinks Tyson Fury was playing a game [in his fight with Ngannou],” Alex said. “He thinks Tyson Fury was not serious. When he steps foot into the ring with Oleksandr Usyk, he will be at his best.”
Fury wasn’t playing a game to try and intentionally look bad against Ngannou. That was real on his part. Fury has gotten old, and he wasn’t able to use his mauling tactics to lean on Ngannou to tire him out like he’d been doing against his other opponents in the last three years of his career.
“I wouldn’t use the word ’embarrassing,’ but it was kind of unusual,” said Krassyuk, reacting to heavyweight contender Zhilei Zhang saying Fury’s performance against Ngannou was “embarrassing.”
It was embarrassing how Fury performed, and it doesn’t matter if Krassyuk wants to use a euphemism to describe his performance. It was pathetic seeing a guy who was considered to be the #1 heavyweight in the division getting beaten by a novice with zero experience.
“Not a single man in the world would expect it, and if Tyson treated him seriously, it wouldn’t happen probably,” said Krassyuk about his belief that Fury didn’t take Ngannou seriously. “He didn’t look trained; his body didn’t look trained.
“So, it looked like the man [Fury] is coming from a long vacation for easy money. That was the way he looked, and he won; there’s no doubt about it. The way he won brings some kind of question marks.
“Size doesn’t matter much, especially in boxing. My experience tells me that it’s not about size, it’s about skills, it’s about mindset, mentality, and boxing IQ. This is what makes you victorious,” said Krassyuk.
Size could matter in the Fury-Usyk fight if Usyk stands still long enough for Fury to grab him and start leaning on him. Ultimately, what could make the difference in that fight is the body punching from Fury. He knows that Usyk can’t take it to the body, as we witnessed in his fight with Dubois, and Fury will look to capitalize on that weakness.
