Tyson Fury has spent months building up his Oct. 28 bout with Francis Ngannou, talking about how fearsome Ngannou is and how hard Ngannou, the former UFC champion, punches.
Fury, though, told you what he really thought about Ngannou as a boxer by his actions Friday, when he signed his name onto a contract to face Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, either later this year or early next year in a bout for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
They could have had the undisputed welterweight title bout between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence. Let's be honest: They could get any bout they want given their extraordinary wealth — but that fight didn't fit their strategy because Crawford and Spence are Americans. Few Americans on a relative scale are going to vacation in Saudi Arabia and even fewer are going to retire there.
These fighters, and others like them, are brick by brick helping to rebuild this sport. One of the common complaints among lapsed boxing fans is that it's difficult to know the champions because there are so many. An MMA fighter isn't going to simply take a two- or three-month training camp and beat someone the ilk of Mayweather or Fury.
The fight with Usyk will be fascinating. Usyk is a former undisputed cruiserweight champion and holds three of the four major heavyweight belts. He's perceived to be a small heavyweight, which he is in relation to Fury, who is 6-foot-9 with an 84-inch reach and will weigh around 270 pounds on fight night. But Usyk is 6-3, 220 and is roughly the same height and weight as the legendary Muhammad Ali.
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