To lose any fight leaves a mark, both physically and psychologically, yet there is something about losing twice to the same man that stays with a fighter, wounding them on a deeper level than any other defeat.
No matter how close the fights were, and irrespective of the calibre of opponent, losing twice to the same man wounds a boxer perhaps deeper than being robbed, or dominated, or even knocked out. It cannot be remedied by a promise of revenge, or excused by bad preparation or a lapse of concentration, for those cards have already been played. Instead, losing twice to the same man hurts because there is a finality to it all, a full stop in place of an ellipsis.
This sense of finality is then only compounded by knowing that there is someone out there who will always have your number and be considered better than you. You have, after all, tried and failed to dispute this on two occasions. No longer can you say: “I’ll get you next time.” You can still win fights, and have your way with other opponents, but never will you be the number one, at least for as long as your career runs parallel to the man who has beaten you twice.
Tyson Fury, now 34-2-1 (24), will soon become familiar with this feeling, having lost again to Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last night. He may even have already got started, for in the ring he was the first to raise his arm after the final bell, and he, of the two, was the one acting as though victory, for him, was inevitable. He was also quick to complain when the decision went the other way and Usyk, now 23-0 (14), greeted it with the grace he always shows in the aftermath of a fight. “I think he got a Christmas gift from those judges,” said Fury at the post-fight press conference. “I felt I won both fights. I knew I had to knock him out to get a decision, but it’s boxing and it happens. There’s no doubt in my mind that I won the fight. We can’t cry over it.”
Fury won’t cry, no, but one still shouldn’t underestimate the damage losing twice to the same man will do to a man like Fury. He is, don’t forget, the “Gypsy King”; someone whose rise to heavyweight fame and fortune was predicated on being the biggest and the best and the most manly of all modern-day heavyweights. He has no equal, no peers, and fears no man born from his mother. Everyone else, to him, was either a dosser, a sausage, or a rabbit. He used to call opponents “just another bare bum in the shower”.
Now, though, Fury suddenly finds himself in a position as unfamiliar as it is final. Now, for all his talk, and for all the great wins of the past, we know exactly where he stands in the heavyweight pecking order. He is still right up there, of course, and still very good, but there will, for as long as he continues to box, forever be another man ranked just above him.
Not just any other man, Oleksandr Usyk is also a man who was once a cruiserweight, someone six inches shorter and 55 pounds lighter than Fury. That aspect, more than Usyk being the superior fighter, presumably represents the dagger through the heart of Fury, for he has now lost twice to a man not only better than him but a man considerably smaller than him; so much so, in fact, that Fury once ridiculed Usyk’s heavyweight plans by saying, “He is too small for the big boys. He’s a little midget.”
Yet it is to this “midget” Fury has now lost twice. It is because of this “midget”, or undersized heavyweight, the lettering of Fury’s nickname – at least the “King” part – has started to come loose, peel off, and he finds himself craving the support of sycophants in the hope they can remind him of his size and status, both as a heavyweight champion and a large man.
“In that fight he never hurt me once,” Fury said. “I’ve got a couple of flesh wounds, but they’ll be gone in two or three days. Not a mark on me.
“I know what’s happened and that’s it. I’ll go home, and there’s not much I can say or do, to be fair.”
As true in the aftermath as it was in the fight, Fury, through 24 rounds, wasn’t able to do much with Usyk, though was more productive in December than he was back in May. In May, there was a noticeable dip in Fury after round seven, and he was lucky not to get stopped in round nine, whereas last night his work was consistent and his concentration levels much improved. In round two, he briefly buckled Usyk’s legs with a straight right hand, and in the fifth he started to work the body well, enough to have Usyk, feeling one or two, smile back at him.
Yet, despite these moments, there were still periods in the fight when Fury would switch southpaw and immediately find himself cracked by a Usyk left hand. He knew each time this happened that he had erred and that Usyk wasn’t like all the other opponents willing to offer Fury both their face and their compliance. As if insulted by the very idea, the second Usyk saw Fury mess around and go southpaw, he was on him in a flash, seeing gaps previously hidden or too far away to probe.
By round six, Usyk, now in his groove, had closed the distance on Fury and was poking him with clean left crosses. One, in particular, landed high on Fury’s head in the final 30 seconds of the round and caused Fury to momentarily back up, the sight of which gave Usyk momentum and the rest of us the impression that he was starting to get on top.
In the eighth, meanwhile, there was a head clash and Fury was warned for holding; an attempt on his part to wrestle back control. What followed then was a good second half of the round for Usyk, as he landed a series of left crosses and a sharp right hook on the inside. Fury responded well in the ninth, digging in body shots and holding his feet more, but Usyk again finished the round on top, connecting with lefts and pushing Fury back.
This pattern continued into the tenth, a round in which Fury appeared ragged and Usyk made him pay for loss of form. He did so via single shots mostly – left hands and right hooks – but it was noticeable how much easier to hit Fury, with his hands down, had suddenly become.
Needing to, he sharpened up in time for the eleventh, a round of back-and-forth exchanges, and the same was then also true of the last, which was elevated by the fact that both heavyweights, having fought in such a measured fashion throughout, realised with just three minutes to go that they still had plenty in the tank and that the fight was still in the balance.
It certainly felt that way, with neither man particularly dominant at any stage. Usyk, the eventual winner, always appeared capable of working things out, especially in the fight’s second half, yet Fury wasn’t without his moments of success, either. As clueless as us all, he had every right to celebrate at the final bell and hope he would get the benefit of the doubt. He also had every right to feel as though the scorecards – all 116-112 in Usyk’s favour – were a little too wide and generous when hearing them read out.
In truth, it came as a surprise – and not an unpleasant one – to witness such conviction and solidarity in the scoring of a big fight. Usually, of course, you wait for the discrepancy and the controversy and you have no option but to dig into the politics of it all. However, on this occasion the three judges were all in line, unanimous in their belief that Usyk had once again got the better of Fury and deserved their acknowledgement of this.
Had just one of the three judges gone for Fury, he would at least have had something to wave in the face of critics in the subsequent minutes, hours, days, and weeks. Yet lacking this vote, and without a win now in two attempts, his own opinions and words carry no more weight than those of any other beaten heavyweight contender.
No longer undefeated, and no longer the “King”, he will have to accept that for him to now ever beat Usyk, he would first have to adopt the role Derek Chisora and Deontay Wilder both played for him in trilogy fights they perhaps didn’t at the time deserve. He would, in other words, need to go to Usyk on bended knee, to reduce the size difference, and do so with his hands out in front of him, not balled or arrogantly tucked behind his back. He would then have to swallow his pride and address him properly. “Master” will do. Or maybe “King”.
The prospect of that, for Fury, would be the source of great pain. It would hurt more than the losses themselves, and it would hurt more than the fact that he lost to a man he had frequently called a “rabbit” yet, on the night, didn’t feel threatened enough to run.