Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are scheduled to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship on pay-per-view Saturday in Saudi Arabia.
TYSON FURY (34-0-1, 24 KOs)
VS. OLEKSANDR USYK (21-0, 14 KOs)
- Date: Saturday, May 18
- Time: 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- TV/Stream: DAZN Pay-Per-View
- Division: Heavyweight (no limit)
- At stake: Usyk’s IBF, WBA, WBO and Fury’s WBC titles
- Boxing Junkie Pound-for-pound: Usyk No. 3, Fury No. 9
- Odds: Even (average of multiple outlets)
- Significance (up to five stars): *****
- Also on the card: Jai Opetaia vs. Mairis Breidis, cuiserweights (for vacant IBF title); Joe Cordina vs. Anthony Cacace junior lightweights (for Cordina’s IBF title); Sergey Kovalev vs. Robin Safar, cruiserweights; Agit Kabayel vs. Frank Sanchez, heavyweights; Mark Chamberlain vs. Joshua Wahab, lightweights
- Background: The time is finally at hand. Talk of a Fury-Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight championship started the moment Usyk defeated Anthony Joshua the first of two times in September 2021. The fight was originally scheduled for Feb. 17 but it was pushed back after Fury suffered a cut during sparring. Fury is coming off arguably the worst performance of his career, a split decision over Francis Ngannou in the MMA star’s boxing debut. Fury battled back from a knockdown in the third round but was fortunate to have his hand raised. He was thought by many to be ill-prepared for the fight, a mistake he will not have made leading up to the fight on Saturday. The 35-year-old from England seems to be in excellent physical condition. Usyk also didn’t give his best effort in his most recent fight, against Daniel Dubois in August. The 37-year-old former 200-pound champion went down from a body shot that was controversially deemed a low blow in the fifth round, which gave him extra time to recover. He rebounded to stop Dubois in the ninth to retain his titles.
- Prediction: Fury UD
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