With 6'8" ish Fury pulling his head up and back his "Upstairs" was at least four or five floors higher than 6'4" ish Dubois who came in straighter and crouched down low to wing hooks and groin shots.
Yes, I'm hoping the height and reach had a lot to do with that but then again he was able to land upstairs vs Belly much more in their first fight and his hand speed just looked distinctly faster vs Dubois and that was against a Belly who came in a lot heavier for the rematch than he did in the first fight. Even when it just came to getting out of the way of shots and being evasive, even when he wasn't walking Belly down, he didn't look as fast and agile as he did vs Dubois. His reaction times weren't as sharp.
I was thinking the same thing. Plus Usyk has most likely been doing his lifting/resistance training like he always has since moving up to HW. Who’s to say this isn’t a little bit of added muscle?! I can’t wait to watch him throw this extra four pounds straight into that POS’s face Saturday night
Usyk going for the KO. I like it. It's still a very good weight, people need to stop acting like he's a cruiserweight now.
That's because Fury is substantially more skilled and faster than Dubios is. It's got nothing to do with a ten pound weight difference.
Everyone acting like this is overweight lol. He's gonna be a bit thicker round the midsection as he ages, that's normal. 227 lets him sit down on his shots more. Dubois might get stopped quicker this time.
If you put on a couple of pounds as you age, it increases punching power. That is wisdom that Joe Louis received from Jack Blackburn.
I don’t know that Usyk’s increased weight can necessarily be put down to garden variety, age related gains. At CW, his “natural” in ring weights were around 215 lbs or so. He has clearly and specifically manipulated his weights for a long time. At HW he has gradually purpose built himself - he was about 215/217 lbs? for his first HW fight I think. He was then in and around 221 lbs for X 2 AJ and Dubois. He was then 223 1/2 for Fury 1, 226 lbs for Fury 2 and now 227 lbs for Dubois 2. For each of his HW fights he has incrementally against with, each next fight seeing him more or less at his highest career weight ever. I understand Usyk was clothed for the Fury 2 weigh in, so a gain of 4 lbs since then would probably be the more realistic calculation. While it’s just 4 lbs, it is still yet another 4 lbs atop the incrementally, ever increasing weights Uysk has previously put on/bulked up to. Even in the context of his own weights as at the time, for the first fight, Dubois came in relatively light for himself at 233 1/2 lbs. Daniel has since settled in more substantively at close to 250 lbs….but notably, he has shaved some pounds again specifically for Usyk coming in at 243 lbs - no doubt to deal with Usyks expected greater mobility as compared to Daniel’s last several opponents. Ultimately, since fight 1, Usyk is up by about 6 lbs while Dubois is about 10 lbs heavier, increasing the previous weight pull of about 12 lbs by another 4 lbs in Dubois’ favour as compared to when they last fought. I agree that Usyk has def. slowed since the first Dubois fight, as a natural consequence of both age and the carrying of greater weight to offset the uniform weight advantages of his HW opponents . Olek’s successes against an also declining Fury may not be the perfect metric to gage exactly where Usyk is at given broader application of himself - likewise with Fury in that regard. Finally, at the same time, I think Usyk has gradually become that much more proactively aggressive, punching with greater power and authority than ever. He also has the psychological advantage of having a stoppage of Dubois already under his belt, ….so maybe (anyone’s guess), he will be that much more aggressive again this time around, looking to put Daniel out in even fewer rounds than before. Go Olek! Ukrainy, Ukrainy, Ukrainy, oi, oi, oi!!
Dont like a heavy Usyk. I think his style needs him to be light on his feet, and the extra pounds can have an effect perhaps, down the stretch. Guess we will see.
Yeah, “correct” weight is a fine balancing act with trade offs I guess, ideally looking to a net sum gain. Perhaps one consideration for Usyk would be the self realisation that he has slowed at any rate, weight notwithstanding - so why not take advantage of the reduced mobility and more frequent periods of flat footedness (which also lends to improved and more frequent windows for greater leverage) by upping his weight as an added ingredient in order to punch that much harder?
Partially, but Dubois has good skills, underrated speed and a fantastic jab. Belly is most skilled, more versatile, and craftier and slicker and has much longer arms than Dubois You can see a clear difference in terms of speed, reaction times, reflexes, agility etc. between this version of Usyk and the one who fought Dubois vs the one who fought Belly, especially in the rematch and I don't think that's just due to the style he employed vs Belly. Like I said, I'm hoping that can be partly attributed to Belly's huge reach and height advantage but coming in heavier than he did for the first Dubois fight is certainly not what I was hoping for. If he's slower, less mobile, easier to hit it and not as fit it greatly increases the risk This content is protected Maybe the huge reach and height disadvantage was a big factor and I guess we'll find out later on today because we can compare Usyk to the version from the first Dubois fight
One correction. He was coming in about 207-208lbs at CW in the fights where the fight night weights were announced