Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury: 5 biggest questions heading into the next (and final?) chapter of the rivalry

The big rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury goes down on Saturday in Riyadh, and it’s a hell of a way to close out the boxing calendar.

We have some burning questions as we head into this weekend’s heavyweight clash, as Usyk tries to align his name with the greats and Fury tries to even the score.

1) In a year of big-time heavyweight boxing matches, Usyk-Fury 2 is the kind of fireworks finale you’d expect to close out 2024. Is this rematch the grandaddy of them all?

Petesy: If you asked me this question last week I would’ve said no, but I have myself all wrapped up in fight week now and I’m frothing at the mouth for this rematch. The first meeting between these two lads was epic.

I went out with my dad and my brother to watch it in local watering hole. All the talk of “boxing is dead” seemed ridiculous when you looked around the lounge and saw every eye in the room locked on the screen. I thought the result was conclusive on the night and I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down for the second meeting … then along comes Tyson with a heavy beard declaring that he hasn’t talked to his missus in three months and suddenly, I’m like putty in their hands. I guess I’m a mark, Chuck!

Chuck: Yeah, there is something about a fighter growing a hermit’s beard that speaks to the seriousness of the situation. You add the celibacy into the equation, and suddenly Fury is like a throwback to the golden 1950s idea of a fighter storing all that is pent-up inside for fight night. This feels like the Fury Stomp of Destruction Tour.

I am with you on this. The rematch didn’t have the same glow as the original booking, but it’s been a masterful job by Fury to breathe the right kind of life into it. He seems more focused than ever. The taste of losing has transformed him into an angry, growling ogre, which is exactly what sells in the heavyweight division. Fight week has me excited to see if he can even the score and add another chapter to his storied career.

2) Fury definitively stated that he’s not retiring if he wins. But if he were to lose, any chance this will be the end of the line for Fury’s boxing career?

Chuck: I think if Fury loses to Usyk again, the available spin will be that Usyk simply has his number. We’d enter a twilight phase of this career, for sure, but I know there will be money out there for him to earn by sticking around. Big money. And you get the sense that Fury wouldn’t want to hang up the gloves off a loss, particularly if it looks like he’d finally been solved once and for all. That would be a hard thing to live with.

The kind of shape and temperament this version of Fury is showing up to Riyadh in tells me the fire still burns inside him. That he still has it in him to find the hunger. If winning has a way of gradually taking a fighter toward contentment, losing kicks in a fiery desperation to get things back on track.

Petesy: Let’s be honest, it would really weird if Tyson showed up on fight week, days out from competing for all the marbles, only to say, “I’m gonna call it a day after this one.” I think the thoughts of retirement probably scare Fury, too. Let’s not forget that a return to the ring saved his life when he was suicidal in the aftermath of making it to the top of the mountain via his victory over Wladimir Klitschko. I think Fury will find it very difficult to retire from the sport regardless of the result. However, if he was to end up face down, ass up in the middle of the ring in Riyadh, I think that may force him to consider it an option.

3) Who else would you like to see Fury face before it’s all said and done?

Petesy: Honestly, there’s only one other person that I want to see Fury fight: Anthony Joshua. That fight is pretty much the Khabib vs. Tony of boxing. I feel like the lads have been circling each other for more than a decade and just when it seems like it’s the perfect time for them to fight, one of them loses and destroys all hope. Fury is in an enviable position here as I feel there is an obvious fight to make if wins — the trilogy fight with Usyk — and if he loses, Joshua and him could produce the biggest fight in U.K. history.

Chuck: Agree 100 percent. The Joshua fight would be the obvious choice, and the only shame of it would be that it arrived a half-decade too late. Still, as the old saying goes, better late than never.

I guess if I were to dig deep — and right here is where all of boxing purists may want to step out of the room — I wouldn’t mind seeing them run back the Ngannou fight. Coming from the MMA side of the ledger, all we’ve done is praise Ngannou for having the cajones, the talent, and the hidden power to stand toe-to-toe with one of boxing’s best. We haven’t focused on Fury's off night. I’d have to think that it bothers Fury’s pride that a relative greenhorn not only stood with him for 12 rounds, but also knocked him down in the process.

4) If he were to win, the trilogy fight between Fury and Usyk feels inevitable, right?

Chuck: Got to do it. It’s rare that you get a trilogy of this magnitude in the heavyweight division while the world is tuned in. It’s not quite an Ali-Frazier level of global concern, but it’s right up with Bowe-Holyfield. Only thing missing is the Parachute Man who crashed that party in ’93.

Petesy, I have to say, this is what it’s all about. Getting two of the most prideful strongmen you can find, who’ve obliterated just about everything they’ve ever touched in their purview, and running a best-of-three? This is where legacies are made. If Usyk beats Fury, it steers him right into the heavyweight annals of greats. Yet if Fury wins? The present is transformed into one of those Heavyweight Eras that fight fans grow so nostalgic for. I have to say, objectivity has a way of slipping out the backdoor with fights like this. Fury has it in his hands to make this spectacular. I want the trilogy!

Petesy: Oh man, didn’t you see the call from Turki Alalshikh to both guys earlier this week? He’s not even pretending who he’s rooting for going into this one. He plain as day told Usyk he wants Fury to win so he can make the trilogy. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Saudis involvement in boxing, it’s Turki Alalshikh gets what he wants. There’s no way either of these lads would turn down a third meeting if it was to cross their tables. And to be fair, it would be the only fight any boxing fan would want to see at that stage too.

5) With a fortune having already been spent, will 2024 be the peak for the Saudi boxing takeover? Or does the February super-card tell us that this thing is just getting started?

Petesy: I know we’ve talked about this before, but the Saudi impact on boxing has been a bigger success than any of their ventures in other sports. I think Ariel Helwani made the point on our old Ringer MMA Show that this is down to them being able to make two huge names face off rather than transferring world class soccer players into their regional leagues to drag the eyeballs in. There are obviously a lot of criticisms of their involvement, but I think we can all agree that the fights they’ve been putting on would likely not happen if they were not forcing them through.

You often forecasted the saturation point of influencer boxing being on the horizon but given this weekend’s fight and the February super-card you mentioned, I think the Saudis are a long way from anything like that. If anything, they’re only getting started.

Chuck: I tend to agree, Petesy. The February card — which features the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, as well as a monster heavyweight clash between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker — is a declaration that Riyadh ain’t done by a long shot. In truth, I think boxing is like a drug to His Excellency. Not just a recreational drug. A drug he needs to score in jonesing fits. You see him beaming on that same conversation you mentioned between him, Fury and Usyk? Inject it in his veins. He’s a mega-fan with the pockets that run deeper than the Veryovkina Cave.

I don’t think the big fights are stopping anytime soon.