Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk vs. Tyson Luke Fury & Jai Opetaia vs. Mairis Briedis II - RBR.

Yes.

I think you are dealing with a hater there.

 

No, Fury was well ahead at the midway point. Frankly Fury was having his way with Usyk in rounds 3-6. 3 was close but you could tell that Fury was starting to confuse and befuddle Usyk. Rounds 4-6 were not particularly close, and it looked as though Usyk had no answers for Fury's enigmatic unpredictable style at that point. And even to start Round 7, Fury once again appeared to be well on his way to winning yet another round, but Usyk changed the fight in Round 7. It was a massive turnaround from Usyk. Of course you're gonna get some Usyk fan scorers giving Usyk rounds 1-3, and just scoring anything remotely close to Usyk, and then claiming this should have been a wide victory for Usyk. We've seen this sort of thing before, when fans of certain fighters just score every remotely close round to the fighter they like, then cry bloody murder at close judges cards.

But, no any unbiased scorer could see Fury was well ahead at the mid way point and Usyk needed to turn the fight around. He did, I don't think you can say that Usyk won it comfortably, but what I would say is Usyk made it clear that he had the momentum after Round 9. And heading into the 12th round, it seemed pretty apparent to me that Usyk was going to win. I said to myself, even if Fury manages to win the 12th, Usyk should still be ahead due to how many rounds he won in a row, plus the extra point in the 9th. And that turned out to be the case. But lets face it, almost every round Usyk won, he won then based on what he did in the last 30 seconds to a minute of each of those round. Whereas some of the rounds Fury won (4-6) were far more convincing (start to finish) than any of the rounds Usyk won.

And for what it's worth, the compubox numbers were very even. Usyk had a slight advantage in landed punches, and had a higher %, but the number of landed punches were very close, which speaks to how close it was. Further, Fury landed a lot of eye catching flashy punches, and was far more of a showman than Usyk. Usyk was more business like, as to be expected, and he pushed the pace in the 2nd half of the fight. So Usyk for me definitely deserved victory based on what he did in rounds 7-11, but he needed to win 5 of the last 6 rounds to win the fight, and he did just that. Not only did he won 5 of the last 6 rounds, but he won all 5 of those rounds based on what he did in the final minute of each of those rounds.

So fair play to Usyk, he won the match in thrilling fashion, but to reduce the match to describe it as a comfortable Usyk win, I think you're sort of underselling how thrilling and dramatic it actually was. Usyk was seriously in it deep at the midway point, but he rallied in comeback fashion to win.

 

After round 7, I had Fury ahead for the first time.

And because of the momentum thing, I was thinking that Fury might just be too big for the Ukrainian.

At the end of round 7, I was very dubious of Usyk winning.


Then came round 8 !

And then. round 9 !!!


After that, it was just a question of whether or not the judges were fair.


Turns out they weren't , but at least they got the result right.

 

You were being too generous.

 

Defendible ?

That Canadian judge should be shot and pissed on.

Like some here on ESB who scored this for Fury, the dude DKSAB.

 

Don't think so.

If Fury couldn't win while being up 4-3 going into the eight with the momentum of having won four consecutive rounds,
I can't envisage a scenario where he has a better chance.

 

I see a lot of people gave Round 7 to Fury. And for me Fury was well on his way to winning that round, but the way Usyk finished Round 7 was enough to edge that round for Usyk.

 

If you go back and look at my scoring, I had it a swing round.

.........Fury......Usyk

Rd 1. 9 -----10

Rd 2. 9 ------10

Rd 3. 9 ------10

Rd 4. 10 ----- 9

Rd 5. 10 -----9

Rd 6. 10-----9

Rd 7. 10-......9 (swing round)



Nevertheless, At the end of rd 7, I felt that Fury had come awake and had seized the momentum. I had Fury ahead and was genuinely worried that Fury was going to win all of the remaining rounds or maybe even get the KO.


Round 8 changed all that.

 

You know what's crazy, if Rounds were only 2 minutes long, Fury could have won rounds 7-11. Usyk arguably won every round he won by what he did in the final minute, including (imho) Round 7. But to your point, Fury arguably did enough to win Round 7, for me I was just won over by the way Usyk finished the round by the incredible shots he landed on Fury in the final 30 seconds. That was Fury's round until that late barrage by Usyk.

 

Very nice.

 

Francis, we don't need your commentary on the fight and the reaction of the audience. We all saw that as it unfolded.


What I want to hear from someone who was actually there....

Did you manage to corner one of them fine-looking women in the stadium ?

Can you give us a blow-by-blow (no pun intended) of how you did ?

Were there any hi jinks with the hi jabbed women ?

Do they wear anything under that garb ?


I'm dying to know, Frank, you lucky ******* !

 

I had it the same score for Usyk, just scored the rounds differently.

 

Yeah, it's my theory that Usyk's team hid the 12 round clause in the negotiations that if no knockout was to take place by the start of the fifth round, that it would be 12-an archaic title custom almost no one has enforced in recent years. Always read the fine print, when you deal with EE's.

 

No it isn't.

 

To be honest....I sat next to a beautiful young lady. Imagine if Zendaya was stunning and that's her. She was by herself and had arrived before we did. We arrived during the Kovalev fight. Anyway a couple hours went by and she was still by herself. So I thought what the hell I'll chat with her.

Turns out she was Brasilian and working in Qatar and loves boxing so she came to Riyadh specifically for this card. She's an art teacher ( God help me so is my wife).
Very lovely young lady. She was a Fury supporter.

She was really into the main event like the whole arena. After the 3rd round I turned to her and she said OMG I forgot to breathe that whole round!

Anyway after the fight we shook hands and said nice things to each other and told each other we'd meet againat the rematch. Then she was gone.

40 years ago I would have jumped at the chance to expand on the relationship. But obviously now she doesn't need a grandpa.

All the above is true. Sigh.