Seems to me that when Fury put it on Usyk in the mid rounds he was doing fine. When he tried to recreate the back foot style from his youth it let him down. If there is a rematch he should be heavier and accept he needs to risk being knocked out coming forward.
The mid rounds were a hybrid of his distance work into front foot work. First making Usyk overreach and totally unsettling him with the lateral movement which heavyweights even cruiserweights don't have then making him pay. Round 1 didn't have any output playing games. Round 2 close but again letting Usyk tag him without a response too much. Then he got serious and looked devastating. Then he got tired and his nose crushed and it went downhill which is exactly what happened in Wilder 1. He got tired, nose popped...then Wilder caught him slacking on the ropes and he went down in round 10. You can't go after Usyk early though or keep pressuring him. He has good feet. Fury was making Usyk reach and that's the goal. It's all about energy conversation and knowing how to edge rounds which both Fury & Usyk can be masters of. Fury dropped the ball letting Usyk win round 1. Usyk was very tired himself and dropped round 12. Usyk got hurt in round 11 despite Fury throwing exhausted arm punches. It was a very very close fight. Usyk really pulled it out the bag in rounds 8 & 9. 2 punches did wonders for him. Usyk did better than Fury in his ability to take the heavy shots and remain composed. He took some big punches but managed to recompose. Fury let him off a little...only because he didn't want to waste energy chasing, Fury had a lot of respect for Usyk and vice versa. These two men proved they are the highest of tier. Both of these guys are highly tuned into what their energy reserves are doing. It's easy to sit here and say he should have done XYZ but they are the ones fighting it. They know how tired they are. They know how much life they have. Fury throwing that stupid double arm punch combo into Usyk in round 9 and then getting caught over the top was so so poor.
I thought fury was doing an amazing job long-arming him, getting in some nice uppercuts, bullying him around until round 7 onwards where he lost some steam/usyk learnt how to approach and it was a horror story from R9 onwards.
He couldnt keep it up. Usyk has better conditioning. He should hsve started tying him up and clinching when Usyk got close and he was fighting backwards. It would hsve been ugly and im glad he didnt but it would have resulted in a clear Fury win.
