Promoter of WBA, WBO, IBF and Ring Magazine heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk 21-0 (14) says he wants to face a better version of reigning WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury 34- 0-1 (24) not the one who struggled to beat Francis Ngannou.
The 35-year-old Briton came out in the third round to fight to a decision victory over Cameroon’s former UFC heavyweight champion, 37, who boxed effectively in the orthodox and overhand positions left. The 10-round non-title fight was surprisingly competitive, with the judges scoring the fight 95-94, 96-93 and 94-95 in favor of Fury. After the fight, an announcement was expected to be made that Fury would face Ukrainian Usyk, 36, in Saudi Arabia on December 23, but that date has been postponed again in post-match in-ring interviews.
Usyk Krassyuk’s promoter Alexander says the former undisputed cruiserweight king just wants to face the best version of Fury so there are no excuses when he wins. “He didn’t take this guy seriously,” Krassyuk told SecondsOut. “His performance last night does not show us anything serious for our fight with Usyk. It means that Usyk should not look at this Tyson Fury because this version of Tyson Fury is not the one that we want to beat. We want a different Tyson Fury. “We want him to take rest, to work and to come back at his top. That’s the guy we want to beat. This version we had last night is a sin to fight with a man like that.” Fury, who suffered a small cut over his left eye in the Ngannou bout, refused to make excuses for his performance and insisted he was well prepared for the bout. “I didn’t underestimate him,” Fury said to iFL TV. “I trained for 12 weeks, [gave] it the best preparation I could’ve done. And that’s it. “It wasn’t the best performance, but I’m not gonna make any excuses. I had a good camp. There was no one to blame or no one to do anything. It was a tough fight. I had to get off the floor to win and, yeah, no excuses. “We didn’t know how good he was or how bad he was. There is no footage of him, I have never seen this man fight as a boxer before. And that’s it. So he’s a lot clumsier than I thought. And he didn’t walk towards me. “He is a clumsy person. He was very good at what he did, so fair play to him. Don’t take anything away from him. He gave me a better fight than any fighter in the last 10 years. I think this is the hardest fight I’ve had in years. Fury admits he was unable to meet his own expectations. “Yeah, that’s below average performance,” Fury said. “But don’t take anything away from others. You’re only as good as your opponents let you be, and that’s the truth. “If I had listened to the media and all the so-called boxing experts: ‘Oh, the fight was easy, it wasn’t even, it wasn’t worth watching,’ then I wouldn’t have won this fight.
