Oleksandr Usyk’s promoter, Alex Krassyuk, says Tyson Fury’s dramatic weight loss is a result of his nerves for this fight on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Krassyuk feels WBC heavyweight champion Fury knows what he’s up against in fighting the talented unified champ Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs), and he’s lost weight from worry.
Fury does look quite a bit thinner than he did last February when he was still quite heavy and suffered a cut, he says, from sparring, causing the postponement of the fight. He’s lost a lot of weight since then. Today at the grand arrivals in Riyady, you could tell how much weight Fury has lost when he flexed.
A Noticeable Transformation
Tyson’s arms had the appearance of two wet, limp noodles with muscles gone, and not the same fighter physically that had twice beaten Deontay Wilder.
There’s a huge money fight against Anthony Joshua that is just around the bend, possibly later this year or early 2025 that Fury wants to get to. He can’t do that if Usyk beats him.
If Fury still does get that fight, he would be backing into it with his popularity diminished, and the fight would be seen as just a business-level one for domestic British consupmption.
Krassyuk on Usyk’s Strategy: A Psychological and Physical Assault
“When a man gets nervous, they lose weight. It’s mental disorder becaue you don’t sleep well, you don’t eat well and you don’t rest well. That’s why you’re losing weight,”s aid promoter Alex Krassyuk to TNT Sports Boxing on why Tyson Fury has lost weight for his fight against Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night.
“Tony Bellew said Usyk exhausts his opponent before killing him. That’s how he does it, step by step. First, he’s eating your confidence when you start missing your punches. Then he’s eating your soul when you get depressed that you can’t do when your plan is not action.
“Then he’s eating your body with the punches. Then when there’s no one to fight, he’s just knocking you out,” said Krassyuk.
“My plan is just to win,” said Usyk when asked if his plan on Saturday night is to knock out Tyson Fury.”
