IT’S over for Tyson Fury at boxing’s top table, for a golden age of British heavyweights and for Saudi mega-fights.Fury will have to content himself with a final mega payday in the sport’s second division.Oleksandr Usyk was the worthy winner and has dismantled British boxing iconsCredit: PATyson Fury’s time at the top has been ended by the UkrainianCredit: PAUsyk rightly won on points by unanimous decision in Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaCredit: GettyWhat once would have been the biggest British fight of all time between Fury and Anthony Joshua will now be little more than a cash cow for two fighters who have been dismantled by Oleksander Usyk, lacking prestige, meaning or belts.For all the griping and sour-graping of the Gypsy King and his promoter Frank Warren in the immediate aftermath of his second straight defeat by Usyk, this was conclusive.Fury vs Usyk 2 – top storiesREAD MORE on a absolute blockbuster night in Riyadh…Usyk is simply too good — and also too low on box-office charisma. This fight, between the foremost heavyweights of the age, played out to near-silence in a 26,000-seater arena which was not even full.Daniel Dubois, Britain’s IBF champion, got into the ring to call out Usyk but we have already seen the Ukrainian knock him out last year — albeit with some controversy over a borderline low blow from the Brit in the fifth round.Read more boxing newsAfter years of A-list fights involving Fury and Joshua, this era is done.Usyk has outpointed them both, fair and square, twice in just over three years. He is an utterly worthy champion. An all-time great fighter and an admirable man from an occupied nation, fighting a bloody war against Russian aggression.Usyk is 37 and has no credible opponents left to conquer. He has neither the knock-out power — after all, the former undisputed cruiserweight king conceded four stones to Fury — nor the lippiness to sell too many more jackpot fights.For all his horrible faults, the heavyweight division will miss Fury at the top end.Most read in BoxingHis has been a macabre circus to follow. Often crude but always strangely enthralling, the man from Morecambe achieved much, by dethroning Wladimir Klitschko, and in an epic trilogy against Deontay Wilder. Tyson Fury gives cryptic update on his future after Oleksandr Usyk defeat as retirement rumours circleHis ring walk in the early hours of a Saudi Sunday morning, dressed in a Santa outfit to the strains of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ was classic Fury.Inside the ring, his performance was anything but.There was none of the showboating that might have cost him in the original fight with Usyk, for the undisputed crown, in May.But Fury lacked sharpness, lacked the brainpower to unlock a devilishly difficult opponent and lacked the supreme fitness to prevail during the championship rounds.The fire seems to have gone from his considerable belly.In both fights against Usyk, Fury faded alarmingly in the second half.This time, he hadn’t even built up a lead in the opening six rounds.Ignore the bellyaching from Fury and Warren. The three judges got it spot-on with a unanimous 116-112 to Usyk. We had feared Fury might have got a dodgy decision if it went the distance, after the great Saudi matchmaker Turki Alalshikh threw his public support behind the Gypsy King, but we need not have doubted their integrity.There was an experiment with an AI judge — which didn’t count towards the result — and the robot handed the verdict to Usyk by an even wider margin.“F*** robots,” wailed Fury, “give more jobs to humans. And f*** electric cars too.”Turki Alalashikh threw his weight behind Tyson FuryCredit: GettyFury believes he won the fight, not UsykCredit: PAThat was perhaps the first sensible thing he had said all week.This was not the result Alalshikh and his sportswashing regime wanted — and it was not the spectacle he was after either.A trilogy fight had been planned for next year, had Fury prevailed, but that never looked genuinely likely. The atmosphere, in the dead of an Arabian night, was little more than a deathly hush.The biggest roar of the evening arrived when an enormous man in the audience won a Mercedes in an electronic raffle.Alalshikh is a genuine boxing aficionado, who has even revived the print edition of Ring magazine. And fair play to him for that.But his home country does not share his fervour for the fight game and does not possess the sporting fan culture which takes decades to grow.There have rightly been complaints about the human rights record of the Saudi regime.Yet to be brutally cynical, that can be washed over.The Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman was contested under the blood-stained regime of Zaire’s dictator Mobutu.All three judges scored the fight 116-112 in Usyk’s favourFury is now at a crossroads in his career with his future up in the airCredit: PAUsyk can be recognised as an all-time great after his two wins over FuryCredit: GettyWhat doesn’t work is sport in an atmospheric vacuum. The crowd needs to be engaged.Fury is a showman worthy of the bright lights of Sin City, Las Vegas, but this audience was as difficult to please as the Saturday night late crowd at the Glasgow Empire.And for entirely the opposite reason — no booze.Fury vs Usyk 2 round by round: How SunSport scored the controversial heavyweight thrillerOLEKSANDR 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 1The 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 2Usyk 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. FuryRound 3Three 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 4Fury 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 5Fury takes control instantly when a right hand is the perfect start to the sessionThen 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 6Fury 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. UsykRound 7A quiet round only really features a crisp Fury one-two and a single Usyk left. Draw.Round 8A 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 9Fury 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 10Fury 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 11These 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. UsykRound 12Fury 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. UsykSunSport’s scorecards: Usyk 118-112 Fury.The Saudi grip on elite sport is tightening with the 2034 World Cup confirmed and an Olympics likely to follow two years later. Not to mention the riches of football’s Saudi Pro League, of LIV golf and ventures into many other sports.But heavyweight boxing may no longer hold its lustre. The biggest purses in the foreseeable future are likely to feature YouTubers, old men and wrestlers.READ MORE SUN STORIESSo what next for Fury? Lennox Lewis has urged him to get it on with Joshua at Wembley.But Usyk has relegated that prospect to a B-list sideshow.Now let’s all get home for a nice Christmas drink. More
