Boxing with Chris MannixMannix reacts from Riyadh to Oleksandr Usyk's split decision win over Tyson Fury. #Volume
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Somebody punch him in the face.
Anty Joshua is a composed and ferocious finisher.
What's this your wais?
This is the heavywee ye posted by sis Chris MANNINGX.
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Here's Chris Mannix.
All right, for the first time this century, and for the first time in boxing history, we have an undisputed four Belt Heavyweight champion, this after Alexander Usik beats Tyson Fury by split decision in ryodd Saudi Arabia. I want to welcome in everybody that's listening on the podcast b We're also showing this on the YouTube page. So if you're not a subscriber to the podcast, hit that subscribe button. If you're not subbing to the YouTube page, make sure you go over there hit that subscribe button as well. So where do we begin. It is after four am in Riod, by the way, and everybody in the hotel that I'm staying at is still buzzing because this was a fight that not only lived up to expectations, but it exceeded them. This was a battle not just between two the two best heavyweights in all of boxing. It was a battle to two guys that are on many pound for poundless. I had Usik going into this fight third on my pound for pound lists. I have Tyson Fury at tenth on the pound for polace. You're talking about not just two of the best heavyweights in the world. You're talking about two of the best fighters in the world, and this fight played out exactly like that.
Let's start with how I scored the fight.
I scored it for de zone one fifteen one to twelve in favor of Alexander Usik. That means I had seven rounds to five in favor of Usik, plus the one minus point for the knockdown that he picked up in the ninth round. I gave Usik the first two rounds of this fight. I gave Fury the next five rounds of this fight, and then I gave Usik the rest, so two five and then a clean sweep by Fury on the back end of my scorecard. And this was a fight that just had a lot of ebbs and flows. Right like the early part of the fight, you thinking, all right, Usik is fighting the same kind of fight we saw him fight against Anthony Joshua. He's closing the distance, he's landing big shit. This is gonna go well for Usk. And then third round, Tyson Fury seems to get a bit of his rhythm back, he hurts Usick, he goes to the body.
He was fighting extremely well.
And then there was a moment at the end of the seventh round I believe where Fury won the round. But there was like the last twenty thirty seconds that Usik started to land some shots and started to look like the Usick from the early part of the fight. Fast forward to the ninth round and Usik landed just a titanic left hand that put Fury onto dream Street. I mean, he looked like Trevor Burbick in the Burbick fight against Mike Tyson. Didn't go down the way Burbick did, but he was stumbling all over the ring, eventually kind of landing in the corner where the referee stepped in and ruled that a knockdout. I've seen some criticism or at least some questions about Mark Nelson, the referee.
Should he have stopped the fight?
Was that really a knockdown because Fury wasn't officially down. I thought Mark Nelson did the right thing in that moment. The last thing you want to do if you're a referee in a fight of this magnitude is involve yourself in it. And unless you are one hundred percent sure that the fighter is out, like if you thought Fury was out in that moment, you can't stop the fight. You gotta keep the fight going. And look, Fury was about to go down in that corner. Mark steped in ruled in a knockdown. I had no problem with that and the way he did that at all. But after that it was just all alexand Usik. He took over, he was going to the body, he was throwing power shots. The biggest difference in this fight statistically was that Fury or sorry, Usik had like a ten percent connection advantage in this fight what you expect because I think Usik is the more accurate fighter. And then the power shots. You know, the first couple of rounds, Usik edged the category, edge the category of power shots, and then the last five rounds he didn't just edge it. You want him big in several of them. So that was the difference for Usk in that fight. I had won fifteen one to twelve, and I thought that was a fair adjudication. I didn't agree with the fourteen thirteen card in favor of Fury that implies Fury went seven rounds of that fight.
I just didn't see that. It was a close fight.
It was a competitive fight, don't get me wrong, but I thought seven to five was the right way to go for this fight. But just a tremendous event. The crowd was lively. I mean there were twenty plus thousand in Kingdom arena. A lot of Brits came over, some Ukrainian fans came over, some locals were there. You had kind of a melting pot of a lot of different people in that arena for that fight. And they spared no expense clearly in putting that event together, and it just lived up to expectations. You know a couple things about this fight in these fighters moving forward, There's gonna be an argument to be made that Usik is number one on the pound for pound list. I saw Turn Crawford tweeting out something to that effect earlier, say, you know, don't give this guy his flowers, Like, you know, he probably deserves consideration to be number one pound for abound. That's kind of for the guy that is number one pound for pound on most lists. You know, Terrence knows what he's seeing. Terrence knows what he's talking about and what he just witnessed with Fury against Usick. He beat the man that beat the man. You know, he beat the best heavyweight in the world that night. So I think Usik deserves strong consideration to be number one on the.
Pound for palace.
I also think we're looking at an all time great fighter, and I'm not talking about all time greate heavyweight because, like you know, Usik's only been a heavyweight for six fights. I don't know if you can declare someone, regardless of resume, to be an all time great heavyweight after six fights in the weight class. The all time great status is more a conversation if Fury had won, because he's a career long heavyweight who has some impressive wins on his resume. But now with Usik, he is an undisputed champion in the four belt era at cruiserweight and now an undisputed champion in the four belt era at heavyweight. Incredible accomplishments, just incredible accomplishments, and he beats some tough guys to do it. He cleaned out the cruiserweight division going up against Bretus and you know, Marotgasiev and some good guys, really talented guys, even from the big name guys in the cruiseweight division.
Then he was up to heavyweight.
He takes down Anthony Joshua twice, he knocks out Daniy Dubois, and now he beats Tyson Fury for all the belts at heavyweight. He's an all time great, as simple as that. I don't know where you put him on your all time great pound for a pound list, but he's up there. Whatever list you're making, he's right there on that list.
Fury I started.
To wondering, like, what is Fury gonna regret in the morning, And maybe he regrets some of the show voting he did in the first couple of rounds of the fight, where he opened the door for Usik to win them on a couple of judges' scorecards.
Maybe he could have been more aggressive, because.
Once that third round came, he started to really assert himself and do the things we're used to seeing Tyson Fury. Do you know he knew that Usik was vulnerable to the body. He kept going downstairs to the body. He's the bigger man. He applied the pressure. He leaned on Usik, you know, during during those rare clinches that they had, he fought like a big man in those middle rounds.
He didn't do it very early on.
So I wonder if he'll look back at those first couple of rounds and say, maybe if I didn't give them away, this would have been a different outcome.
But It was a fantastic fight.
It was a phenomenal fight, and the best part about it is that we are going.
To get this fight again.
That's because Turkey Alashik, who is the most powerful man in boxing right now. There's no denying that this man snaps his fingers and is able to make the fights that all the fans want to see. He made the Fury in Ghanu fight, and say what you want about it, that's a big crossover event that cost a lot of money to go in. He had a great card in December on the day of reckoning card, great card in March, and this was a great card on Saturday Night. I mean, you know, top to bottom, you had Gayapataia in a phenomenal fight with Mars Bridis. Kind of a lot of eerie similarities between Opataiah Britus two and Opataia Britus one, where you know, in the in the the championship rounds, Maris Bridas almost pulled it off. He busted up Opataia's nose again. Opataia busts up his nose as well. These two guys just keep breaking each other's faces over and over again. Uh, but that was a terrific fight Joe Cordina. Uh, Anthony Caccacci, you know that was a good fight. Uh. Some controversy there, yes, you know Cacacchi he caught Cordina after the referee yell, break, I believe in the third round, and when he caught him, it really hurts.
It really caused problems for Joe Cordina.
But uh, I give Cacaci a lot of of credit in that fight. He was hungry, he was motivating, He was the better fighter, uh tonight, And you know for Joe CORDEENA. Yeah, there was some talk about a rematch afterwards, but talking to people around Mattroum, there's a sense that Cordeina probably has to move up and you know, fight one hundred and thirty five pounds, even killing himself to make one thirty And then I get it, you've got the belt around your waist and you don't want to give that up voluntarily. But I think now that he's been beaten, I think going up to one thirty five, trying to rebuild at that weight class is probably the smarter play.
So it was a great card from start to bottom.
But again, the fury Usic matchup, it was you know, it was built as two as the two best guys in this division, and it was built as a potentially great fight, and it was. It was everything we could have asked for in a heavyweight fight. It had, you know, a roller coaster type rhythm to it. It had big power shots landed, It had a climactic finish.
The twelfth round was interesting too.
I edged it for Usik, but I could understand some people out there giving it to fury I can see that because fury Land had some good moments.
I thought, USA get more and again the power punches.
If you look at those copy box numbers, they are going to wind up favoring Alexander Usik in a big way.
But you know this is this was Alexander Usik's knight.
It was his night, and he deserves all the flowers that come with being the undisputed heavyweight champion. And when I look at Usik, one of the things I was talking about some people afterwards, like he's gonna do the rematch because it's a great fight.
There's a pile of money in it.
I read, you know, on social media, and reports are that Usik broke his jaw after during the fight and had to go to the hospital after the fight. And if that's true, like, kudos to you Usik as well. I mean, you fight through a broken jaw at heavyweight against Tyson Fury and still close the show in the way that you did. I mean, that's just another page in the legacy of Alexander Usik. But if I'm Usik, I take that rematch and if I beat Fury might retire. I mean, he's thirty seven years old. Like, what else does Usik have to prove? If if he beats Fury a second time, he will have two wins over Anthony Joshua, he will have two wins over Tyson Fury. He will have a win over Danie Dubois, who no matter of weeks might be the heavyweight champion. I remember that part of it. This was for the undisputed heavyweight championship. But in a few weeks time or less, actually the IBF is going to strip Usik and make Philip Perkovic for Daniy Duois for the vacant heavyweight title. That was kind of a known, a known thing going into this fight.
So what else do you have to prove? Man?
Like?
What else is out there?
Do you want to fight Jared Anderson, like as a third fight with Anthony Joshua.
All that interesting?
I know the matchroom people will tell you, yeah, AJ's got a new trainer, Ben Davison is excellent and he's reinvented Anthony Joshua.
But I don't know.
Usik is an all time great and if they fought again tomorrow, I would favor Usick to win that fight.
After that, like, you know, there's nothing else out there.
Do you really want to see him fight a Philip Perkovic does need to do a Duoa rematch? Was there any controversy real controversy in that that fight? He'll have done everything and at thirty seven years old he could retire as a boxing Hall of Famer. So incredible night in Riad, incredible.
Morning, I should say.
I think the main events started like one thirty am local time, so people back in the US and the UK they got it at a reasonable hour. Uskin and Fury they had their ring walks late. They were incredible ring walks.
Like the the just the the all.
All the flare that goes into events like this was was really impressive.
It was really impressive.
But yeah, it was all all U six Knight and now we see what happens in the remaind tell you what, if Fury wins the rematch, it's give me a big appetite for a third fight as well. I know that, you know a lot of people will push for AJ against Fury. That's a huge fight over in the UK. But you know, if it's a competitive fight in a rematch, and I have no reason to believe why it wouldn't be a competitive fight. I don't think Tyson Fury, you know, will look back on this fight and say I was outclassed.
He's looked back in his fights. I made some mistakes, especially early on.
But I do think that if there is a competitive second fight that Fury wins, all of a sudden there's a third fight, and if Fury can win that one, and then maybe you get the AJ fight that everybody's kind of been waiting for. So great night, great knight for boxing, uh, great night for Alex and Usak, Great knight for Ukraine. I was talking of Vladimir Klitschko after the fight, and I asked him like, what does this mean for your country? And he looked me in the eye and he told me that you know, right right now in Ukraine. People are dying, like literally in this moment, you know, bombs are being dropped and people are dying. But he said, for forty eight minutes, the people of the Ukraine had something to be proud of. The people in Ukraine had something to celebrate. And that's pretty powerful, you know.
It was Usik.
Not only does he have the pressure of trying to win a heavyweight championship, he's got the weight of a country, a war torn country right now on his shoulders, and he really shined in this fight. So just an amazing night, an amazing performance, and I can't wait to see what's next.
