[Sport] 'The glory of all boxing.' Fury, Usyk & the winding road to undisputed

[MehrezVM]

 

Tyson Fury is wrong. He might say this is just another fight - he might need to treat it as such to make sure he wins it – but this is not just another fight. It’s the fight.

 

The one that boxing, the one that sport has been waiting for. That wait, finally, is over.

 

In the quarter of a century since Lennox Lewis was the division's undisputed champion, there have been heavyweight titlists. Indeed, for many years two great heavyweights dominated the landscape, and they could not fight each other for very good reason - Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko were brothers.

 

In 2015 Tyson Fury began his first championship reign, upsetting Wladimir Klitschko in Dusselfdorf to win the unified WBO, WBA and IBF titles. Plagued by mental issues, Fury didn't box again for more than two years after that.

 

While Deontay Wilder held the WBC belt, the others scattered. Anthony Joshua picked up those titles that Fury had once held.

 

But Wilder and Joshua never agreed to an undisputed fight. Then Fury crashed back into the upper echelons of the division. Shedding a massive amount of weight he took on Wilder. Fury was held to a dramatic but controversial draw when he challenged the WBC champion in 2018. He then crushed Wilder in their 2020 rematch.

 

Efforts to make an undisputed title fight between Fury and Joshua came to nothing after that when America's Wilder forced his contractual rights to a third bout.

 

That final encounter was an epic, one of the most exciting heavyweight fights of all-time, with Fury rising from the canvas twice himself, dropping Wilder three times before spectacularly knocking out the American in their 11th round.

 

Meanwhile Usyk was completing his intricately planned advance to the top of the heavyweight division. The Ukrainian had become an undisputed champion at cruiserweight in magnificent fashion, beating Marco Huck, Mairis Briedis and Murat Gassiev all in their home countries.

 

He then outboxed Joshua to become a unified champion at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London.

 

Usyk walked away from a lucrative rematch with Joshua when Russia invaded Ukraine at the start of 2022. He returned to his home country to enlist in the territorial defence force and take up arms. When he was permitted to return to boxing, he rose to the occasion with style and determination, handling a ferocious effort from Joshua to win clearly.

 

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