As Tyson Fury’s legs succumbed to the punches Oleksander Usyk was detonating about his temples in the 9th round of their undisputed heavyweight title clash, it brought to mind the work of renown Steeplejack, and Fury’s fellow Lancastrian, Fred Dibnah. Famous for his affable smile and fearless enterprise in climbing mill town chimneys of the type LS Lowry painted in the sky-line of post-war, industrial Manchester, Dibnah became an unlikely television personality in the 1970s and 80s. The British public became enchanted by his boyish glee as he clung on to the side of an obsolete monolith hundreds of feet above the ground with only stout boots and blue overalls to protect him.
In the gratuitous hospitality of a Saudi Arabian Saturday, a hellish Kingdom where all visitors must protest their gratitude with unstinting profusion, Fury was no more detached from the mundanity of Lowry’s flat capped factory workers, Dibnah and the grey skies and modesty of his own youth than anyone else in attendance to these grotesquely performative advertorials. With the possible exception of his vicarious father, John. A man made to ‘bleed his own blood’ having head butted a diminutive member of Average Joe’s Dodgeball team earlier in fight week.
In that 9th round, as Fury Junior’s matchstick legs betrayed the impossible heft above, it reminded this viewer of Dibnah, ambling backward in the long shadow of a Rochdale chimney stack condemned to fall by a redundancy of purpose. At that point, with his grip on his own consciousness at its most tenuous, he may have wished to be back home, or anywhere other than the tumult of losing a heavyweight title.
That Fury survived, the latest in a compendium of the miraculous, was testimony in the main to his inherent stubbornness. In truth, his cause was aided by the magnitude of the match and Fury’s long history of Lazarus like recoveries. Factors which discouraged referee Mark Nelson from calling the fight off in the 9th round when entirely entitled to. Usyk, the unflinching destroyer, with just a pair of stout boots and the gloves of his trade for protection, appeared as comfortable in the maelstrom of jeopardy and the tumbling tower as ever Dibnah did.
If remaining upright was indeed a miracle, will it be the giant Gypsy King’s last? Turning 36 shortly before the proposed October date of their contracted rematch, Fury has modest mileage in the ring, certainly by comparison to those who punched for pay when Dibnah was dropping chimneys, but Fury cannot escape the effects of his ill-advised indulgences over the years and the inevitable march of time.
A man with wealth beyond estimation, and a widely shared distrust of money’s constituent value in his own pursuit of contentment, it would be easy to surmise that he no longer craves difficult money, nor does he need it. Being left untroubled while picking up dog shit behind his pet Rottweiller a modest, and perhaps entirely invented, aim for such a talented man.
And yet, for all Usyk’s technical brilliance; from his judgement of distance, precision and unrivalled ability to evade Fury’s grappling on the inside, there is an argument Fury still won six rounds. Two judges agreed. Time and space wasted in gurning and acting for the audience spoke of either arrogance or anxiety but whatever the crucible for the stupidity, it stole key seconds and wasted opportunities when Fury was fresher and Usyk less certain. The knockdown, the moment his towering frame was held up only by the ropes, proved absolutely decisive as far as the scorecards discerned.
Were Fury able to add heft to the 262 he boxed at last weekend and fight aggressively on the front foot as he did through the middle rounds, a period where he exerted control and threatened to overwhelm the smaller man, there remains ample evidence he may yet have one last miracle within. It would be foolish to rule him out given the physical advantages he would still deploy despite their apparently diminishing returns.
For Usyk, there is a greater sense of journey’s end. The tallest mountain climbed, the biggest challenge conquered at the crescendo of an astonishing career from Amateur to Professional. With consideration of his enduring patience in reaching this point and a willingness to travel for opportunities to confirm his greatness in a division he was dismissed as too small to compete in, the last two years blighted by the war still being waged in his own country, it is just as hard to assess how motivated Usyk too can remain.
A rematch with Fury is the most lucrative match available and Usyk will be acutely aware sequels usually follow the pattern of the original and often with more conclusive outcomes. Fury can be better, if his inability to follow through on the impetus in the middle rounds is not the sign of irreversible decline. Whilst Usyk, the master of dismantling opponent’s technique, will also be confident of capitalising on Fury’s weaknesses with even greater efficiency. The knowledge he can definitely hurt the bigger man also a source of confidence if the assumption of the contracted rematch becomes reality.
Neither man will want to pursue other options. Neither has time and, it is safe to assume, ebbing inclination too.
However unstimulated they will be in their mid-thirties, neither will walk away from the riches of the return and the ever greater ascension it will afford to the victor.
BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK 
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