More than likely going to happen. Fury will beat that former cruiserweight like a bag of potatoes. Look at their common opponent Chisora. Usyk had a somewhat close and difficult fight against him. Tyson Fury dominated him. Usyk also had a somewhat close fight against bum Joshua who previously got dominated by a fat beluga and in the second fight had to cowardly accept to go the distance against him. But wait a minute folks, the current narrative from the sellers of bad matchups is that Fury is ducking Usyk, he scared, and if the fight happens, Fury will be sent to retirement.
Oh ye gods. Tell me you are a casual without telling me you are a casual. 1) Styles make fights. A slugger/pressure fighter hoping for a quick knockout will always have that type of fight with a mobile, smaller HW. Also, Usyk had a subpar camp and more importantly, he was playing possum. He was ordered NOT to hurt Chisora in round 7. It is documented. Team Usyk wanted him to look a beatable opponent for Joshua, that's why he was given a title shot in only his 3rd fight as a HW. It seems their plan worked not only on Joshua but on a lot of casuals who still parrot #butUsykstruggledagainstDelBoy 2) Even IF the struggle would have been real against Del Boy: once again, styles make fights. It's ridiculous when people talk about this tired old nonsense about triangle theories. The HW history is full of examples why you can wipe your backside with the "if fighter A beats fighter B and fighter B beats fighter C, then fighter A will destroy fighter C" nonsense. Norton beat Ali all three times. Frazier beat Ali. Foreman comes along and literally wipes Norton and Frazier out, both in two rounds. Ali faces Foreman in Kinshasa. What happens? Ali not only beats Foreman but does he unthinkable and knocks him out. Or another example: Lewis KOd Bruno in brutal fashion. McCall KOd Lewis in two, then Bruno dominates McCall to an UD. Or yet another example: Holyfield beats Foreman, Moorer beats Holyfield, Foreman knocks Moorer out cold. I could go on. Only casuals come up with the triangle theory nonsense, especially when it comes to the heavyweight division.
"He was playing possum" I think it's more likely that Chisora just gave him a tougher than expected fight but Chisora's done that for much of his career against favoured opponents (Helenius, Vitali, Scott, Whyte, Takam, Parker, Pulev). If Usyk had been playing possum it would have been insanely risky given the reputation of British judges, and the fact that Usyk was a potential thorn in A-side cash cow Joshua's side who Hearn likely wanted to hand a bad result to. Usyk allowing Chisora to have decent rounds in 9 and 10 (which many neutral observers had Chisora winning) would have been moronic. If Usyk had been given a draw it would have been a robbery but also quite conceivable, a fair few on these forums thought Chisora won 6 rounds, partly because they were expecting a much more dominant performance from the huge favourite against his allegedly faded journeyman opponent. "Triangle theory" This is the standard parroting of that youtube bouncer gasman, it ignores that there are also levels to boxing. Obviously triangle theory is not an absolute rule of logic but more often than not the fighter who beats the mutual opponent(s) in more convincing fashion (which itself has to be defined/understood) around a similar time period is favourite to win.
Win or lose Fury is fighting an old, small guy, with little power. Don't be surprised if he tries to fight Charr instead, two hip replacements and years of fighting nobodies is very enticing to Fury.
List some wins in heavyweight history that you consider decent, then list some wins that you consider great.
beating Usyk would be a very good win, probably his best. Doesn't change the fact Usyk is an aging fighter whose best attributes are usually the first lost to age. Thought I was supposed to be banned by now? Another accurate prediction from you.
Cool. But regardless of Usyk's age (which doesn't say a great deal in itself), he's just picked up two of the three best wins of his career. Usyk chose to move up to heavyweight fairly late in his career, then chased AJ for years and agreed to a rematch. Fury is regarded by many as "past prime" himself and the average age of the heavyweight top 5 is 35, "prime" isn't a specific age and isn't consistent between eras. And historically, Holyfield (a smaller man than Usyk, who'd taken more damage and been KO'd inside 8 four years prior by Bowe) was 37 when Lewis beat him in a competitive fight, in what was definitely one of Lewis's top 3 career wins.
we have no idea, when or if the fight will happen. what the circumstances will be. if ruiz beats wilder, fury's whole career suddenly is one fight against a guy a few months from forty going through domestic hell. speculation mostly ends up being dead wrong.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves: Wilder hasn't lost to Ruiz, whereas Ruiz dropped Joshua 4x and made him quit in 7. So if that discredits Joshua (whose best win is Wlad in a life and death in Britain, 17 months older than he was against Fury at 41, coming off an extended layoff), then Usyk's wins over Joshua don't mean much, so what is there aside from that? Briedis got a gift against Noel Gevor and lost to Opetaia, whose never beaten anyone else of note and the Usyk-Briedis fight was 50-50. These would be absurd standards to hold for a variety of reasons. There was a 100m sprinter (a sport where athletes tend to peak earlier than HW boxing) who was 40+ who was objectively in his prime, running a career PB of 9.93. Wlad was a 4/1 favourite over Fury because people either believed he was at his best or not far from it, with home and A-side advantage, and modern heavyweights in their championship debut at 27, taking a massive step up in levels, probably aren't in their absolute primes either. "Domestic hell" is a silly excuse. Wlad produced a career best performance against Haye when his father was on his deathbed dying of cancer. Wlad claimed to be training 4 times a day for Fury rather than his usual 3, so he couldn't have been too preoccupied with his wife. Wlad, being extremely rich, focused and disciplined, would have had family or servants attending to the bimbo while he was training for Fury.
Usyk is half his size, is 36 years old, and has fought once a year for the last 4 or 5 years. In no world are these factors irrelevant, and thus they effect the significance of wins and losses.