Usyk stuck to his guns in the early stages of the fight as Fury showboated in the ring and pulled faces. The Gypsy King found his reach and enjoyed the upper hand during the first half of the contest, before Usyk illustrated his mettle with some ferocious hitting as the encounter went on.
Usyk appeared to be on his way to a KO in round nine as he pummeled Fury and sent him around the ring, with the 35-year-old wobbling from rope to rope. But Fury somehow survived the assault and made it all the way to the end.
Usyk, however, ultimately became champion by the narrowest of margins, with the scorecard at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh reading 115-112 to Usyk, 114-113 to Fury, and 114-113 to the Ukrainian.
The result means Usyk has now added the WBC belt to his collection after already holding the WBO, WBA and IBF titles. But, according to boxing journalist Dan Rafael, Usyk will only have all four belts for less than two weeks as he will be forced to vacate the IBF belt.
All of the sanctioning bodies have a mandatory challenger, with Filip Hrgovic currently in line to fight for the IBF belt. The IBF were happy for Usyk and Fury to battle it out for the title of undisputed champion, but will then hand their belt to the winner of the contest between Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois. That fight will also take place at the Kingdom Arena in Saudi Arabia and is scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 1.
Usyk became the first man since Lennox Lewis 25 years ago to claim the title of undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. But the decision for Saturday’s victor to vacate his IBF belt was reportedly part of the contract between Usyk and Fury.
“I don’t think about boxing now, please,” explained an emotional Uysk after the fight. “My camp started in September 2023, I worked for nine months. I missed Happy New Year, I missed my son’s birthday, I missed my other son’s birthday, I missed my daughter’s birthday and then the birth of my daughter. I also missed family holidays. I was only focused on this fight – now I’m happy and I want to go back home.”
