HE entered the ring dressed as Bad Santa but Tyson Fury suffered season’s beatings from the finest heavyweight on the planet.
Oleksandr Usyk completed his demolition derby of Britain’s heavyweight hopes by defeating the Gypsy King for a second time, just as he had done to Anthony Joshua.
Throw in a knock-out of current IBF champion Daniel Dubois and Usyk has confirmed himself as undoubtedly the greatest heavyweight of his generation.
Usyk made light of a four-stone weight disadvantage as his superior footwork, hand-speed and ringcraft earned him a unanimous points win to back up the split decision he earned here in his original meeting with Fury in May.
In the wee small hours of an Arabian night, the 36-year-old Fury’s hopes of ripping away Usyk’s WBA, WBC and WBO belts barely got going.
Fury’s beard had caused pre-fight controversy but he lacked razor-sharpness inside and outside of the ring as Usyk’s flawless record remained intact.
READ MORE ON FURY VS USYK 2
He performed his ring walk in a Father Christmas-style red robe with a white trim but his festive season is going be lacking in comfort and joy after this schooling.
Amid the myriad minarets and the vast shiny shopping mauls of the Saudi capital, the Kingdom Arena is a featureless box.
But Fury, especially, it was a place of destiny. Would he retreat from here as a three-time world heavyweight champion or as a man with no obvious fighting future?
Fury had rocked the boxing world to win world titles on two previous occasions – toppling Wladimir Klitschko after almost a decade on the heavyweight throne, then demolishing the unbeaten record of the explosive Deontay Wilder.
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Fury vs Usyk 2 round by round: How SunSport scored the controversial heavyweight thriller
OLEKSANDR USYK took another controversial decision over Tyson Fury to regain his heavyweight throne.
Seven months on from their split-decision thriller, this time the scorecards were unanimous 116-112 all in Usyk’s favour.
The Gypsy King stormed out of the ring as his promoter Frank Warren was left stunned by the cards.
Here’s how SunSport’s Wally Downes scored the fight…
Round 1
The rules were ignored and Fury arrived at 11:15pm local time with a beard that would make Brian Blessed’s chops feel naked.
If we thought his face fuzz looked overgrown, we were stunned to see the size of his belly when the cameras caught him topless in his dressing room.
His red shorts were so high that you couldn’t even see much of his gut, an inch higher and the 20st beast would have had the option of tucking his nipples down there too.
Fury tried to intimidate Usyk with the final face-off, widening his eyes like a monster but the champ remained ice cold.
They swapped jabs and fenced with their lead hands. Usyk drove left hands into his wobbling belly and then clipped him with a head shot to snatch the opener. Usyk.
Round 2
Usyk lands a scoring one-two to the head as soon as the session starts but then returns to the body and lands lefts, one even makes Fury stumble.
But the Gypsy King lands a treble-jab and then a meaty right hand to take the round.
Still no signs of the body blows and uppercuts that won him the middle rounds of the May fight. Fury
Round 3
Three times Usyk scores with a jab to the body and left hand upstairs.
Fury struggles to deal with the pressure. Fury lands a little check hook and even tries the southpaw stance.
But all his threats to skin and cook the bog-eyed rat or ugly rabbit prove empty. Usyk.
Round 4
Fury makes a bright start with a chopped right hand.
Bit Usyk almost whacks his whiskers off with two left hands that score well.
But Fury pings back with a big right hand that forces Usyk back.
Then that uppercut returns and cuts through Usyk’s guard. Draw.
Round 5
Fury takes control instantly when a right hand is the perfect start to the session
Then the Brit gets warned for rabbit punches as he bids to bully the champ.
Usyk is then walked into a lead left uppercut and then he starts shipping body blows. Usyk scuttles off and has to recover. Fury.
Round 6
Fury in trouble. The challenger’s bloated body starts to sweat and Usyk keeps targeting it with his power-punch left.
Then he goes head hunting and clips Fury’s skull.
The Morecambe giant is buzzed and worried, his head got rocked backwards. He hides the rest of the round. Usyk
Round 7
A quiet round only really features a crisp Fury one-two and a single Usyk left. Draw.
Round 8
A one-two-hook works for Usyk as he pushes all of the pace an pressure and Fury tries to hide his 20st target.
An accidental clash of heads thankfully leaves no cuts.
Fury does launch a limp attack but Usyk smiles back and shakes his shaven head. Usyk.
Round 9
Fury starts to tire, he has so much timber to lug around and lumberjack Usyk loves chopping him down.
He’s too big to dance and rub and counter.
He is playing super-fit Usyk’s game. Usyk.
Round 10
Fury lands a rare uppercut and attacks Usyk’s body. He takes the centre of the ring but then eats a couple of shots.
Fury tries to hold and lean and sap at Usyk’s engine. But he is punished with a left to the cheek.
Big left from Uysk lands and scatters Fury sweat beads off his head.
But Fury cracks back with an uppercut. But Usyk’s pressure and punches win in. Usyk.
Round 11
These could well be the deciding rounds. Usyk is busier, Fury throws an uppercut but it only grazes his guard.
Fury walks onto a tippy-tappy combination but then two serious shots. The wind is coming out of his giant red sails.
Usyk is relentless and bouncing and prodding and punching and Fury is 20st and flagging. Usyk
Round 12
Fury starts like a man who knows he needs at least a lockdown but that helps Usyk counter him.
A combo of three straight punches score for the Ukraine icon.
But Fury keeps swinging and slashing and pulling up the shorts that slip down his back and love handles from all the sweat Usyk has drained out of him.
With a section of the ungrateful crowd booing and whistling they slug it out for the final ten seconds finish. Usyk
SunSport’s scorecards: Usyk 118-112 Fury.
This, though, was his toughest test beyond doubt.
Usyk was unblemished as a professional, having unified both the cruiserweight and heavyweight crowns.
Usyk was unblemished as a professional, having unified both the cruiserweight and heavyweight crowns.
Both a cunning boxer and a fierce fighter, motivated not just by his own status but as the sporting flag-bearer of his occupied homeland.
And despite the split decision from the judges in May, there was little doubt that the Ukrainian should have been a clear, unanimous winner.
That had been a classic encounter, between two unbeaten fighters at the top of their games, when every major heavyweight belt had been up for grabs for the first time this century.
Since that original bout, boxing being boxing, Usyk had been stripped of his IBF title, now held by Dubois.
But even the young Brit’s Wembley demolition job on Joshua couldn’t detract from the fact that Usyk and Fury are the two pre-eminent heavyweights of their era.
Fury arrived with his controversial beard still intact, despite the protests of the Usyk camp.
It was a beard you could lose a badger in. Perhaps the bushiest beard seen on a major British sporting figure since WG Grace was scoring runs for England in the Victorian age.
The undercard had been short on quality, thrills or sensible judging and it was 1.30am local time before the main protagonists entered the arena.
There were plenty of empty seats inside the 26,000-capacity venue and nothing like the fervour of an authentic big fight night at Wembley or in Las Vegas.
But those days are largely gone with the Saudis controlling elite boxing and gearing up to host a World Cup and an Olympics in the 2030s.
Still after a live drummer had battered his way through Eye of the Tiger, ringmaster Michael Buffer declared the party started.
And Fury, dressed in a Santa robe, strode forward to the strains of All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Fury had clowned around in that previous meeting seven months ago, dropping his guard, sticking out his tongue.
Fury vs Usyk 2 – top stories
READ MORE on a absolute blockbuster night in Riyadh…
During the build-up, he’d been in deadly serious form, yet he was a piece of pantomime from a man who has always been able to switch effortlessly from vaudeville to violence and back again.
Usyk, in traditional Ukrainian fighting get-up, was in no mood for such frivolity.
Before the first bell, Fury was goofing again, goggle-eyed and blowing kisses.
The first was cagey and even but the second was Fury’s as he found his range with the jab then rocked the champion with a big right late on.
With precious few Brits have made the journey to a bone-dry country during Christmas week, what crowd noise there was, favoured Usyk.
The Ukrainian was more fluent in the third, setting about his work like a lumberjack trying to fell a mighty oak.
The fourth was lively – Usyk inflicting pain with a combination to the body but Fury pinning him back later on.
Usyk’s footwork was superior but when Fury landed, it told. In the fifth, the Brit delivered a vicious uppercut and then propelled the champion backwards with a couple of body shots.
Yet Usyk is obdurate and he won the sixth with a couple of clubbing lefts, Fury looking unsettled and wild.
It was impossibly close to call, Usyk’s speed giving him a slight edge in the near-silence of a largely unappreciative crowd.
The sterile atmosphere better suited the cool-headed Ukrainian and late in the ninth he rocked Fury with a powerful left, after the Brit appeared to deliver a low blow.
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Fury’s extra weight and the cumulative effect of Usyk’s body shots were taking their toll and the Gypsy King was tiring alarmingly by round ten.
In the penultimate round a left hook rattled Fury’s skull and while the Brit landed a few desperate shots, Usyk finished up looking the more assured fighter by far.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
