Carl Froch is picking IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk to defeat WBC champ Tyson Fury in their undisputed fight on February 17th.
Carl notes that Fury looked confused, unmotivated, and carrying a lot of fat around his belly & sides. Tyson came into that fight weighing 277 lbs and looked like he hadn’t taken it seriously.
Tyson looked more concerned about going home to count the dough he was getting for the Ngannou fight than he was actually fighting. He looked lost in reverie, not focused in the way he needed to be.
Froch failed to acknowledge the lack of quality fights that Fury has had in the last eight years. He talks about Fury’s wins over Deontay Wilder, believing that he was in fine form in those contests, but he wasn’t.
All Fury did to defeat Wilder was lean on him and brain him with rabbit punches. It was simple stuff that any two-bit heavyweight could do.
In Fury’s fight against Ngannou, he was lost because he couldn’t use the mauling that had become his sole method of winning. The former UFC champion was too strong and was beating him up on the inside.
Fury couldn’t return to how he used to fight when he was mobile because of his age and the weight he was carrying around his midsection.
Can Fury Rediscover His Magic?
Fury looked lazy and shiftless against Ngannou, and he was a shell of the fighter he’d been when he defeated 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. That’s Fury’s best career win, and it came against an old guy. Now he’s in the same boat, but nowhere near as talented.
That version of Wladimir was fighting at a higher level than Fury, and he was in much better condition. With his trainer SugarHill Steward, Fury has transformed into a mauler, and he can’t do much else nowadays.
Ngannou dropped Fury and got the better of him in every round but ended up losing a controversial ten round split. Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) was lucky that the fight was staged in Saudi Arabia because if it had taken place in the U.S., he would have lost for sure because the judge scored fights based on clean, effective punching, not by the amateur system.
Fury was landing tapping shots, and the judges gave him the victory, which was laughed at by the fans. It was yet another fight on Fury’s resume, which he appeared to lose but was given the victory.
Tyson needs to trim the weight off
Froch hopes that if Fury can trim down for this fight, he can rediscover the fighter he was during his best years. This writer has his doubts. At 35, Fury is not a spring chicken, and he’s so wealthy that it will be difficult for him to put in the hard work needed to prepare for the more disciplined Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs).
“I’m picking Usyk. When he fought Ngannou, he looked confused. Has he gotten old overnight?” said Carl Froch to talkSPORT Boxing, picking IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk to defeat WBC champ Tyson Fury on February 17th, 2024, in their undisputed championship.
“To shift that belly fat, that breadbasket he’s carrying. He’s got weight on him, and that weight holds him up. It’s a hindrance. It’s not a help, but there’s no benefit to having fat around your belly. Hopefully, Tyson Fury can get back to where he should be because he’s fighting for the undisputed heavyweight title,” said Froch.
Froch isn’t sure whether the 35-year-old Fury is still mentally in the game at this point in his career after how he looked in his recent fight against Francis Ngannou. At this point, Fury is a bloated version of the fighter he once was.
Too much good eating, insufficient exercise, and weak opposition have transformed Fury from the svelte, highly mobile boxer into the plodding mauler we saw labor to a controversial decision against the boxing novice Ngannou.
