Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk promises to bring back seriousness to boxing. Photo: Shutterstock/Amer Ghazzal
“Undeniable.” That seems like an inappropriate label to attach to Saturday's Saudi bout between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. After all, virtually every aspect of the fight was the subject of endless controversy, from the location and date to the division of the £115 million prize fund.
But now, at last, boxing has produced a true blockbuster, its first fight in 25 years , with all the heavyweight belts on the line. The timing, given the heartbreaking prospect of 57-year-old Mike Tyson coming out of retirement this summer to confront rowdy YouTuber Jake Paul, could hardly be more propitious.
In an era of increasingly kitschy crossover experimentation, the sport finally has a spectacle that can propel a winner to true greatness. Both men deserved their chance: Fury scored a double victory over Deontay Wilder, Usyk crushed Anthony Joshua twice.
Each fighter also has a backstory worthy of the event, given Fury's recovery from severe mental illness and Usyk's enlistment into the Ukrainian army weeks after the Russian invasion. All in all, it's a powerful antidote to the way KSI, social media star and CEO of the aptly named Misfits Boxing, is calling Conor McGregor for a fight that will be a box office sensation but means nothing.
Gravitas: That's the kind of quality the fight in Riyadh this weekend promises. Or at least that's what happens when Fury's father is denied the opportunity to headbutt the smallest member of Usik's entourage.
Undisputed champions have been a rarity in the four-belt era, with just nine men holding the title since 2004. When Lennox Lewis became the last heavyweight to wear the crown a quarter-century ago, only three major champions had done so. belt, as well as the less respected International Boxing Organization title. Whoever accomplishes the quad here on the outskirts of the Saudi capital, no one can deny the magnitude of the feat.
Turki Alalshih, an adviser to the Saudi royal court and chairman of the kingdom's General Entertainment Authority, calls Fury vs. Usyk the “crown jewel” of his efforts to annex boxing's fractured landscape. Nobody in sports wields as much power as this hyper-ambitious 42-year-old, who is rarely photographed without sunglasses. Without his funding, it is doubtful that this fight would ever have taken place. And while the rewards on offer may be eye-watering (Fury could earn more than £80 million if he wins), the figure pulling the strings insists he is a purist at heart.
“We don’t want to see any YouTubers again,” he says. “I want to see the fighters.”
Tired of the freak show
It signals a hopeful pushback against the dreamers and never-becomes, whose arrogance has recently turned boxing into a bad joke. Just last year, Saudi Arabia showed streamers' delight with Paul's fight against former Love Island contestant Tommy Fury, Tyson's half-brother. It was a tasteless affair: Paul's provocation even went so far as to announce the birth of his opponent's child before the younger Fury or his partner could do so.
It now appears that Alalshikh has grown tired of the freak show and has decided that true reputation lies in staging meaningful fights.
Despite the absurdity of the preamble, his latest production has far-reaching significance. You can detect this in Fury's unusual deference to Usyk, calling him a “great fighter”, and in the Ukrainian's arguments that he fights for “legacy, not money.”
It seems a stretch to portray this as a throwback to the 1970s, when being the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world could rightly be called the sport's highest prize. “He's either the coolest man in the world or he's not, but it's entirely possible he is,” wrote Norman Mailer. “It’s like God’s thumb. You have nothing to measure yourself with.”
What elevated this period was how often the icons fought each other. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier met three times: the first time in the “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden, and the third time in “Thriller in Manila” four years later, which was a symphony of unrelenting brutality. Even into the 1990s, duels regularly made the headlines: Lewis, after gaining his “undisputed” title, fought twice with Evander Holyfield, who in turn had the opportunity to enjoy a trilogy against Riddick Bowe.
Today's tactics, by contrast, tend toward mutual avoidance, with great fighters dancing around each other for so long that the moment is lost. The carrot of an all-British fight between Fury and Anthony Joshua has been dangling ad nauseum, but given both are in their mid-30s, is it likely it will ever happen? Even this Fury-Usyk clash, postponed twice in the last six months, was only made possible by a giant sovereign wealth fund.
No wonder everyone kneels at Alalshikh's feet. “His Excellency,” chuckles Fury, who usually doesn’t like accolades, aware that the Saudis have made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.
But if there’s a good reason to be grateful to Alalshih, it’s this that he realized the box was broken after drowning in a YouTube bubble bath. This week he suggested the horrific Tyson-Paul fight in Dallas in July was rigged, calling on the older man to “forget the script.” It's a sign that in the battle for fame between real champions and fame-hungry wannabes, the pendulum has finally swung in the right direction.
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