Tyson Fury has now shared the ring with Oleksandr Usyk on two separate occasions and fallen short both times. But Fury believes he should be up 2-0 in his rivalry with the Ukrainian.
“I swear to God, I thought I won it by at least three rounds,” Fury told his former trainer Ben Davison backstage after the Usyk rematch on Saturday night. “I bossed the fight [on my] front foot.”
Usyk won a 116-112 unanimous decision on all three cards against Fury in their WBA, WBC and WBO heavyweight title rematch at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Former unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua had Usyk winning by a slimmer margin than the judges, 115-114. Uncrowned scored the fight a draw, 114-114. The majority of notable observers and pundits appeared to have Usyk in front, though four of boxing’s most powerful promoters ringside — Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, Oscar De La Hoya and Bob Arum — all had Fury winning the bout.
In his post-fight press conference, Fury repeatedly claimed the judges’ scorecards were “an early Christmas present” for Usyk.
“I was quite confident [I was ahead going into the last round],” Fury said. “I thought I won that fight again. I thought I won both fights. But then again, I’ve gone home with two losses on my record now.
“There’s not much I can do about it, I can just fight my heart out and do the best I can. I’ll always believe until the day I die, I won that fight. I was on the front foot all night, landing body and head.”
After a journalist present at the post-fight conference told Fury that he personally had the Brit winning the fight by two rounds, scoring it 115-113, Fury responded that he believed “a lot of people” had him beating Usyk, but he refused to dwell on the result. Fury’s attitude is consistent with comments he made this past week to Uncrowned while rejecting the idea that he was robbed in his first fight with Usyk.
“I feel a lot of people did [have me winning] as well, same score,” Fury said. “Frank had me three or four rounds up, a lot of people had me [up] at least two. It is what it is, I’m not going to cry over spilled milk.
“I know boxing, you can’t change [any] decisions, but I’ll just always feel a little bit hard done by [the past two Usyk results]. Not a little bit, actually a lot. When you don’t get the knockout, this is what happens. You can’t guarantee a win.”
There was a fourth judge scoring Saturday’s rematch, albeit unofficially. For the first time, an AI judge was used to monitor a boxing match and produce a scorecard as part of an experiment by Turki Alalshikh.
It’s fair to say that the experiment wasn’t quite as successful as Alalshikh would’ve liked. The AI judge had Usyk six points in front with a score of 118-112. “The Gypsy King” was far from pleased hearing this.
“Absolutely sh*t. F*ck all the computers, keep the humans going,” Fury ranted. “More jobs for humans, less jobs for computers. And f*ck electric cars too while we’re at it.”
