Did you notice how Usyk seemed to have slowed down?

Fury is fast for a SHW, so the smaller HWs don't have the speed advantage they're used to.
He's on his way to 40 and beefed up for HW, so probably the slowest he's every been too.

Ali and Holmes have nothing for Fury. They have no defence and no power and are also far smaller. This is just American mythology talking.

 

He still bashed your boys AJ, Dubois, Chisora and Fury.

 

He has slowed a couple gears with age and going up in weight. Nothing wrong with his timing and movement though.

 

Usyk is much slower than he used to be. He's reaching the end of his career. Sad but true

 

He doesn’t have the engine he used to have.

He appeared to hit an early stamina wall during the mid rounds of the Fury fight - not a lot of movement offered - therefore more hittable -

He recovered himself from and including round 7 on, though still clearly not the indefatigable Usyk of old.

 

He's 37 years old and was fighting at his heaviest weight ever and still was faster than the lineal heavyweight champion.

 

Fury's prime as a boxer-mover was Chisora 2 to Wlad, 8.5 to 9.5 years prior to the Usyk fight. Before Fury had ravaged his body with obesity, drugs and alcohol and when he'd only been knocked down twice rather than seven times. Hatman noted that Fury's body in 2018 didn't look as good as it did in 2015, I'd add that it also declined for Wilder 3/Whyte/Chisora in 2021-2022 and declined again for Ngannou/Usyk in 2023 and 2024. Even at 262 lbs for Usyk (lighter than he was vs Schwarz in 2019) it looked a mess. This has to reflect a considerable decline in physical attributes.

Usyk looked far better against Dubois than Fury did against Ngannou. Even if the Ngannou fight is discounted due to Fury's lack of seriousness (and it can't be totally because Fury took more head damage and would have had his confidence knocked, especially after Joshua destroyed Ngannou, with Usyk's confidence greater than ever as a result), Fury's performance against Chisora in 2022 was inferior to his 2014 performance; he absorbed many more punches and needed many more punches to (less decisively) stop a less durable, wartorn Chisora. His output and movement were also clearly diminished in Chisora 3.

Hence Fury was quite strongly favoured to beat Usyk toward the end of 2022 but the odds had shifted to 50-50 at the end of 2023. It was widely believed (I think accurately) that Fury was further past his best than Usyk, who although 17 months older has always been a consummate professional and his body at 37 looked very similar to how it did at 27. Usyk has of course slowed down but not to the same degree as Fury. To make a further comparison, the undisciplined Bowe was retired by 29 but Holyfield gave Lewis a close fight at 37.

 

Fury was slowing down by the time round 8 came anyway. Usyk was probably going to sweep rounds 8-12 no matter what.

Fury did show that, realistically, conditioning cost him the fight. Before he started slowing down and got caught, he was figuring Usyk out and outboxing him.

 

And Foreman was fighting young bucks in his late 40's, on a diet of cheeseburgers and milk shakes.

 

The 10 year break helped to preserve him, he wasn't a recreational drug user to my knowledge and he aged uniquely well stylistically. As the oldest HW titlist ever by a significant margin he's a bit of an anomaly.

 

It's simple maths

He is getting older

He is heavier than ever before

Father Time is creeping up on him.