John Fury has accepted his on Tyson could lose to Oleksandr Usyk next year.
The highly-anticipated undisputed clash between Fury and Usyk will take place on February 17 after months of failed negotiations. The bitter rivals were hoping to fight just days before Christmas, but Fury took an unexpected amount of damage in his controversial win against former UFC champion Francis Ngannou and their fight was pushed back as a result.
John previously backed his son to walk all over Usyk but no longer seems as confident in his son’s chances of beating Usyk after his end-to-end fight against Ngannou. Fury refused to attend the post-fight press conference despite winning the bout and he looked disheartened in interviews following the fight. John thinks his son will be in trouble against Usyk if he doesn’t put in the work beforehand.
“I’m going to say it first. Whoever puts the best camp in and does the work will get it and deserve it. If Usyk puts a better camp in that Tyson, he works his a** off, he gets everything right, the better man will win. It’s up to both guys what they want out of this. Tyson knows he needs an 180 degree turnaround. If he’s not prepared to do that, good luck to Usyk,” he told Daily Mail.
“Tyson will have the eye of the tiger back for this one, he’ll need to change everything round. He’ll need to do everything different and gain some solid muscle and put some work in – crack his balls working and when he does that, Usyk’s going to have a problem. He won’t be facing this negative Tyson that you saw with a s*** game plan.”
Usyk hasn’t fought since defending his unified world titles against Daniel Dubois in August, a fight that was overshadowed by a controversial low blow that Dubois maintained was legal. Fury wasn’t impressed with Usyk’s win as he said: “I think he got hit in the body with a good shot and he didn’t want to get up, he was rolling on the floor crying like a little b****.”
