That’s all for tonight. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to read Donald McRae’s full ringside report here.
Compubox’s punch statistics lend numerical context to tonight’s result. Usyk landed 179 of 423 punches (42.3%), compared to 144 of 509 for Fury (28.3%). Much like in their first encounter, the tireless Ukrainian poured it on over the second half of the fight, landing 54% of his power shots over the last five rounds while saving his most prolific rounds for the 11th (22 punches landed) and 12th (20).
Fury leaves the ring without giving an interview. But his promoter Frank Warren is there to speak for him after Usyk is finished.
“How could Tyson only got four rounds from this fight?” Warren says. “It’s impossible. Four rounds, across all three judges. Each of them four rounds, all different rounds.”
Warren is asked what Fury will do next.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, he’s very disappointed as I am as well. But I mean, I would genuinely ... I’m not saying any bias. Everybody along the front there. We all thought it was [much closer].”
Will we see Fury in the ring again?
“That’s up to him,” Warren says. “That’s up to him. I mean, you know, it’s too early. It’s just after a fight, obviously emotions are running high. We’ll see. But you know, it’s nuts. Nuts. I don’t get it. I’m really, really disappointed. But look, it’s what it is and we’ll have to see what happens in the future for Tyson.”
Daniel Dubois, the IBF’s heavyweight champion, then crashes the interview, grabbing the microphone and saying: “Well done on tonight. God bless. I want my revenge for the robbery last time. Let’s get it. Let’s go.”
Usyk doesn’t look too impressed.
“Your Excellency,” Usyk says. “Organize it. Make me. Make me fight with Daniel Dubois. Thank you so much.”
Dubois then exits stage right and the in-ring interview resumes. The champion is asked what he makes of Fury as a fighter after 24 shared rounds together.
“It’s a great fighter,” he says of Fury. “It’s a great opponent. It’s a great 24 rounds, an unbelievable 24 rounds for my career.”
Usyk then says: “I want to devote this victory to my mama, Nadezhda. She’s worrying about me all the time. And I want to say to her, thank you very much for everything you’ve done to me. And I devote this to her and to all mothers of Ukraine.”
The final question: what more does Usyk have to achieve? What more does he want to achieve.
A simple answer: “I can. More.”
Updated
“I win,” Usyk says, when asked if he thought the scorecards were correct. “Is good. [The scores are] not my deal. I win. Thank you, God.”
Asked why he once again was able to find another gear past the middle rounds of the fight, the champion is to the point.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I’m trained. Good prepared. My wife helped me. My children. Listen, today for me is a very happy day. Because my both guys, my sons, today win competition too, in the judo. My son Kyrylo and my son Mykhalio take judo belt orange and green. My son, talk to me: ‘Hey, Papa. You next.’ I say, ‘OK, I’m trying.’”
Usyk beats Fury by unanimous decision!
And Oleksandr Usyk has done it! The Ukrainian has retained his unified heavyweight champion with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury. All three ringside judges handed down scores of 116-112. Here’s a look at how they scored it round by round. (The Guardian had it 115-113 to Usyk.)
Updated
Round 12
Fury is pressing forward with urgency, seemingly knowing he needs a knockout, but he’d better be careful as Usyk is timing him carefully and looking to catch him on the way inside. Fury really letting his hands go, attacking with abandon while alternating between southpaw and orthodox stances, but Usyk is taking the shots well and giving back as good as he’s getting. There’s the final bell and Usyk stands in the center of the ring looking skyward with gloves to the side. As good as it gets at the heavyweight level. What a fight!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 9-10 Fury (Usyk 115-113 Fury)
Round 11
Usyk’s boxing is making a bigger statement than Fury’s occasional pockets of success, which have mostly come with the uppercut. Usyk continues to press forward, throwing shots to the head and body from creative angles that Fury can’t account for. The challenger lands a pair of lumbering shots to the midsection but Usyk just smiles. Usyk’s dexterity is really taking over. He lands a left square on Fury’s chin that appears to stun the bigger man. The champion is in full command. Speed kills.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 106-103 Fury)
Round 10
Fury is trying to hold the center of the ring but Usyk remains on the attack. Fury throws shots then leans on Usyk in clinches with greater success than in previous rounds. Usyk lands a couple of shots upstairs. A left hand from Usyk to the head and Fury immediately clinches. Fury lands an uppercut but Usyk fires right back with a combination! A two-way firefight near the end of the round but Usyk gets the better of it. Very close round, almost too close to call.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 9-10 Fury (Usyk 96-94 Fury)
Updated
Round 9
Compubox’s punch statistics indicate Usyk is throwing and landing more shots and at a higher percentage, but this is still a competitive fight. For now, at least. The champion is really pushing this pace and Fury is having trouble keeping up. Usyk’s body work is slowing the challenger down, allowing the smaller man to stalk his foe and take the power out of Fury’s shots. By the end of the round Fury is moving entirely in reverse and looks completely exhausted.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 87-84 Fury)
Round 8
Fury is slowing down and you begin to wonder if the career-high weight is working against him. Usyk continues to keep the pressure on, moving forward relentlessly and firing away with left hands over the top. Now Fury comes forward while trying to re-establish his jab, but Usyk remains a slippery target before catching him with a combination upstairs followed by a body shot. What poise and composure from the champion, say nothing of his conditioning!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 77-75 Fury)
Round 7
Usyk fighting off the front foot in the first minute of the seventh as Fury appears to be feeling the pace. The referee is breaking up all of these clinches quickly, which plays in the champion’s favor. Usyk lunges in and lands a left hand upstairs that buzzes Fury! Fury is on the back foot, his activity slowing down quite a bit, with Usyk hunting him down. Fury switches to southpaw again near the end of the round and Usyk catches him with another left to the head. That Usyk left hand won the round by itself.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 67-66 Fury)
Updated
Round 6
The pace has slowed a touch at the start of the sixth but who can blame them. Usyk lands an overhand right but Fury returns with a jab-left hook combination. Usyk lands a crisp one-two combo to the head punctuated by a left hand over the top. More excellent lateral movement from Usyk, who catches Fury with his guard down near the end of the round and lands a flush overhand left hand upstairs that buzzes the challenger! Halfway through the scheduled 12 rounds and we’ve got another classic in the offing.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 57-57 Fury)
Updated
Round 5
Fury lands a punishing right uppercut to the body, his best shot of the fight. He’s using his size and crowding the champion, tying Usyk up along the ropes and trying to lean on him, only the first time he’s managed to get him in the clinch. The round ends with Fury walking down his foe, throwing and landing more shots. Another very competitive round but the easiest of the fight to score thus far.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 9-10 Fury (Usyk 47-48 Fury)
Updated
Round 4
The frenetic pace continues as Usyk continues to land more while throwing less. Fury switches to a southpaw stance and Usyk lands a one-two combination followed by a massive left hand that appears to hurt Fury! He’s backed up to the ropes and the crowd swells! Fury switches back and fires back with confidence, holding off the oncoming champion with a flush right uppercut. This is high-level stuff from both men with so little to separate them after four rounds.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 38-38 Fury)
Updated
Round 3
Usyk continues to move in and out of Fury’s range, doing his best to neutralize the challenger’s attack with deft footwork. Usyk is barely missing with combinations but Fury is looking a bit more tentative. The champion continues with dedicated body work, but Fury is finding success with the lead left hook. Another very close round but Usyk has done just enough to take it on our card.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 10-9 Fury (Usyk 28-29 Fury)
Round 2
Fury showing good variation with his lead hand, but Usyk has claimed the center of the ring. Fury is throwing less than he did in the first while Usyk starts to work the body. A double-jab from Fury backs Usyk up but the champion continues with in-and-out movement. He’s really punishing Fury with a barrage of hard left hands to the midsection. Those could pay off down the road. But Fury does enough to nick a very even round with a crisp right hand to Usyk’s temple.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 9-10 Fury (Usyk 18-20 Fury)
Updated
Round 1
And they’re off! Usyk and Fury practically sprint from their corners to meet each other in the center of the ring and Fury is already looking more aggressive than in round one of the first fight, pumping his jab with urgency. Usyk bursts into the pocket and lands a right hand upstairs. The 55lb weight difference looks even starker under the lights than at the weigh-in. Fury targeting Usyk’s body with straight shots. Both fighters opening up, eschewing the typical feeling-out period. More body shots from Fury. Usyk’s balletic footwork creating an elusive target for the challenger. Usyk barrels in and clips Fury with a left hand. A frantic pace!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Usyk 9-10 Fury (Usyk 9-10 Fury)
Updated
Buffer has made the fighter introductions. The final instructions have been given by referee Roberto Ramirez Jr, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!
Three anthems: Saudi Arabia, then United Kingdom, then Ukraine. Now it’s Buffer’s turn to make the has made the fighter introductions. One last dispatch from our ringside correspondent:
We’ve had Sweet Caroline, yet again, and a drummer hammering along to Eye of the Tiger as the arena darkens and phones light up on cue. Not long now and we’re definitely out of the cold now. This is always a testing time for the fighters, in the seclusion of their locker rooms, as they wait for the last minutes to pass. Usyk and Fury pushed themselves though dark places in May to produce a classic. They are both ready to go further still. It’s almost time for this riveting rematch.
Now here comes Oleksandr Usyk. He walks quickly and methodically to the ring like a tiger as his personal hymn (Гімн Олександра Усика by Браття) plays on the arena sound system.
Time for the Champion to walk! #UsykFury2 is NEXT 🔥 #RiyadhSeason pic.twitter.com/n6cCDRAAtA
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) December 21, 2024
Updated
Ring announcer Michael Buffer has emerged from the tunnel. He calls for the challenger and Tyson Fury makes his entrance, first to Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, then to Hypnotize by The Notorious BIG. He’s wearing a red robe with white trim, not too far off from traditional Father Christmas garb.
Wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of Mariah, tbf 🎶
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) December 21, 2024
Here comes Tyson Fury! @DAZNBoxing pic.twitter.com/MqSbzFlYYv
Updated
Footage from Fury’s dressing room is raising eyebrows in the moments before the main event. The former champion’s trunks are riding awfully high, prompting questions over what the referee will consider his beltline.
“Fury’s trunks are crazy high,” writes boxing trainer Stephen “Breadman” Edwards. “I wonder if someone says something. The key to this fight is Usyk’s left hand to the body. Usyk most likely hurt him to the body if he’s wearing his trunks like that. Left hand to the body. Left hand to the body.....”
IT’S ALMOST THAT TIME ⏰@Tyson_Fury is in revenge mode! pic.twitter.com/wiFMmQ4lew
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) December 21, 2024
It’s time. The lights have gone down inside the Kingdom Arena and the main event ringwalks are about to happen. We’re off a bit sooner than anticipated thanks to the exceptionally brief co-main event.
Our man at ringside checks in as we count down the minutes to the main event:
Moses Itauma is only 19 but the British teenage heavyweight recorded a sensational first-round TKO of a tough and normally durable Aussie, Demsey McKean. His ferocious punching power really lit up the Kingdom Arena and cleared the way for an earlier-than-expected start to the compelling main event. The music has been cranked up and, yep, everything feels much more intense. We’ve got a first real crackle in the previously chilly atmosphere.
Itauma defeats McKean by TKO 1
Well that was quick. The 19-year-old uberprospect Moses Itauma has just blasted out Demsey McKean in the opening round. Two heavy knockdowns before the referee waved it off at the 1:57 mark. A statement win for Itauma in what had been thought to be a step-up fight. The boy’s a bit special!
Updated
It’s a quarter to one in Riyadh as the crowd awaits the co-main event. Here’s a dispatch from Donald McRae, our man at ringside:
It’s 12.45am in the Kingdom Arena and there is a real bite to the air. It feels like we are outside rather than near ringside in this vast indoor auditorium. For a while, during the slugfest between Johnny Fisher and Dave Allen, it was akin to hanging around a pretty cold carpark at the back of a McDonalds watching two small town bruisers having a roundhouse swinging dust-up. I’m not sure Fisher v Allen was quite what the Saudis had in mind when they decided to take over boxing. It was crude stuff but Allen really should have won by stoppage … he let it go to the judges and two of them robbed him.
The atmosphere is muted as Ishmal Davis fails to come out for round seven. Serhii Bohacuk was simply too much for him.
I am looking forward to a little more heat, and just one more fight, before Usyk v Fury …
Moses Itauma and Demsey McKean are in the ring for their 10-round heavyweight contest. It’s the final undercard fight before the Big One featuring Usyk and Fury, who are in their dressing rooms at the moment getting their hands wrapped.
Focused and ready…🥊#UsykFury2 x #RiyadhSeason | Live on Sky Sports Box Office pic.twitter.com/AOYpak6l6i
— Sky Sports (@SkySports) December 21, 2024
As we wait for Itauma and McKean to make their entrances, Turki Alalshikh has just pressed a red button gifting a 2025 Mercedes-Benz S-Class to a fan in the upper deck. It sure beats the T-shirt cannon!
The randomly selected winner of a Mercedes-Benz, courtesy of His Excellency Turki Alalshikh. #FuryUsyk2 #UsykFury2 pic.twitter.com/z0R4pyQVkv
— Talen Guzman (@TalenGuzman) December 21, 2024
Bohachuk defeats Davis by RTD 6
Serhii Bohachuk has defeated Ishmael Davis after Davis’s corner threw in the towel after round six. It’s a good stoppage after the Leeds man was dropped once and took a one-sided beating over the next four rounds. That means Bohachuk is the mandatory challenger for Sebastian Fundora’s WBC title at 154lb.
Tale of the tape
Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury are expected to make their ringwalks around 2am local time (11pm GMT and 6pm ET). Here’s how they measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Fury came in at a career-high 281lb at yesterday’s weigh-in at the Kingdom Arena while Usyk tipped the scales at 226lb, making for a yawning 55lb discrepancy that will be slightly reduced in the ring. Fury’s advantages of seven inches of reach and six inches in height remain the most imposing physical obstacles facing Usyk, the former undisputed cruiserweight champion who has exceeded all expectations in six fights at heavyweight.
Weigh-ins ahead of heavyweight fights are almost entirely ceremonial affairs since it is the only weight class where fighters aren’t bound to meet a contracted pound limit. But Friday’s proceedings were of particular interest given the extent to which each man’s weight affected their performance in their first meeting. Our Donald McRae was in the room:
It had been widely expected that Fury would come in much heavier for the rematch. But the extent of the weight disparity was still surprising and it offers the most graphic indication yet that Fury, as he has promised all week, will be intent on walking down Usyk in the belief that the former world cruiserweight champion can be stopped by sheer physicality and bludgeoning force.
Fury is also six inches taller than Usyk. Carrying so much weight, he will not be looking to dance and move fluidly across the canvas. He will lean down heavily on Usyk, trying to drain him of energy – and of course he will plant his feet and, with aggression and power, look to blast his way through the defence of the brilliant and intelligent Ukrainian. Usyk is a master strategist and Fury has told him clearly what he is about to confront. The unbeaten champion is never intimidated in the ring and he will be ready for Fury’s coming onslaught.
Right now Ishmael Davis and Serhii Bohachuk are in the fifth round of their undercard fight. It’s a final eliminator for the WBC super-welterweight title held by Sebastian Fundora. Davis, the 29-year-old from Leeds nicknamed the Black Panther, was down in the second and wobbled badly in the third by his Ukrainian foe, but he’s still in the fight.
There’s one more preliminary bout after this one: a scheduled 10-round heavyweight fight between Moses Itauma and Demsey McKean. After that, it’s the main event.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to tonight’s heavyweight championship rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury. We’re back at Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena seven months after Usyk toppled Fury to become the sport’s first undisputed heavyweight champion in a quarter-century. Will the 2012 Olympic and two-weight champion from Ukraine double down on his supremacy in boxing’s prestige division? Or will it be 2 Fury 2 Furious as the Gypsy King restores his place atop the heavyweight throne?
Of the many well-documented reasons for boxing’s protracted retreat toward the periphery of the mainstream, the lack of clearly identifiable champions rates high on a competitive list. At one time the heavyweight championship of the world was the most prestigious title in sports, yet the lack of central authority has left us with four major sanctioning bodies that have generally created confusion among casual observers while devaluing the currency of a title.
Usyk delivered that long-sought clarity in May when he won a razor-thin 12-round split decision to add Fury’s WBC title to the WBA, IBF and WBO straps he’d won from Anthony Joshua, making him the first boxer to hold all the major belts at the same time since Lennox Lewis.
Because we can’t have nice things, tonight’s rematch is not for the undisputed title. That’s because Usyk generously vacated the IBF strap in June so it could add some juice to the Daniel Dubois-Anthony Joshua show at Wembley in September. (Dubois won that fight and the belt by fifth-round knockout in an upset.)
But make no mistake: these are the two best heavyweights in the world today … and Usyk is the one and only true heavyweight champion. How will he fare in his first title defense? We’re roughly two hours from finding out.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Donald McRae’s lookahead to Saturday’s main event.
