A major advance in Usyk's war

The Ukranian becomes the undisputed heavyweight champ, first since 1999, as he gets past Tyson Fury.

Usyk (left) defeats Fury

The world has seen Ukraine, and the way it goes into unfair fights with unblinking eyes and unbuckled knees. No surprise, then, to see how Ukranians fared on Saturday when their gloves and those of their opponents weighed the same.

In Riyadh, Oleksandr Usyk became one of the most accomplished heavyweights in history. He deflected, survived and ultimately pummeled Tyson Fury for a one-point split decision, thus earning all four championship belts.

In San Diego, Denys Berinchyk welcomed the favored Emanuel Navarette to the lightweight division with another split-decision victory, winning the WBO championship and raising his record to 19-0.

Last week Vasyl Lomachenko, hoping for one last splash at age 36, cast aside his losses to Teofimo Lopez and Devin Haney and dominated George Kambosos on his own homecourt, in Australia.

Wladimir Klitschko, the longtime heavyweight champ who lost his title to Fury nine years ago, was smiling at ringside as Usyk won. His brother Vitali also held a heavyweight belt and, in 2003, nearly knocked off Lennox Lewis at Staples Center in Los Angeles, leading on the scorecards when a cut over his eye forced him to sit down. Vitali is handling heavier duties now. He is the mayor of Kyiv.

Usyk grew up in Simferopol, which is in Crimea, which the Russians annexed in 2014. Usyk rarely discusses the war, since he’s leery of being mis-transalated, but he has posted “Crimea is Ukraine” on social media.

Usyk enlisted in the Kyiv Territorial Defense until it was time to return to the gym. Lomachenko did the same, in Belograd Dnestrovsky. Usyk was interviewed by CNN, early in the war, as he spoke from a basement in Kyiv. “If they want to take my life or the lives of my close ones, I will have to do it, but I don’t want that,” Usyk said. “Maybe it’ll sound sentimental but my soul belongs to the Lord and my body and honor belong to my country, to my family. So there is no fear, absolutely no fear. There’s just bafflement. How could this be in the 21st century?”

You could also wonder how such a fight as Usyk-Fury could wind up in Saudi Arabia, but every century has its imponderables. Usyk and Fury, both of whom came in undefeated, overshadowed their shadowy surroundings. It was a brilliant fight, with sharp fluctuations and continual action. No longer do we wonder where the athletic heavyweights have gone. Fury, even with his infrequent boxing schedule, is still a precise, clever boxer at 35. Usyk, for his part, plans to play professional soccer once his boxing is done. That will be a while, even though he is 37. This fight had a rematch clause that Frank Warren, Fury’s manager, said he would activate for a date in October.

“He won a few rounds but I felt I won the majority of them,” Fury said. “Make no mistake, I won the fight. But it was well done by him. He’s a good little man.”

No post-fight songs for Fury this time, although he sang “You’re My Everything” by Teddy Pendergrass during his walk-in. The Gypsy King was in no shape to cut a rug. In the ninth round, he was dealing with a right lead from Usyk when he caught a chopping left to the side of the head. Fury leaned against the ropes to survive, but then went on a stumble, turnbuckle-to-turnbuckle, and referee Mark Nelson ruled a knockdown. Then the bell intervened. Fifteen more seconds, and Nelson would have been forced to stop it.

That knockdown made it a 10-8 round. Without it, judge Mike Fitzgerald would have ruled it 10-9, which would have prompted a draw.

Craig Metcalfe gave Fury a one-point edge; Manuel Oliver Palomo favored Usyk by three. But Usyk didn’t resemble a winner after six rounds. The 6-foot-9 Fury repeatedly fired right hands into the midsection of his 6-3 opponent, whom he outweighed by 40 pounds. He was feeling good enough to clown around, holding his hands behind him at times, lounging against the corner at others. Usyk backed off during those episodes, refusing to engage. It did him little good and, on Fitzgerald’s card, he was down five rounds to two.

But Usyk began cranking up his offense after the sixth round. The lefthander got more aggressive with his right jab. Fury was content to fight on his back foot anyway, and inevitably Usyk, a technical savant, found the range with his left. After the knockdown Fury tried to retaliate, but the layoff, and maybe the accumulated years, wouldn’t let it happen.

Since Fury’s third and most savage encounter with Deontay Wilder in 2021, he had fought only three times. The last fight was a split decision over Francis Ngannou last October. At the time Ngannou was a 36-year-old UFC practitioner who had never boxed before, yet he decked Fury in the third round and, in some eyes, should have won the fight. Fury’s stock wasn’t helped when Ngannou next challenged Anthony Joshua and went down in two rounds.

Usyk took Fury’s WBC title. He already had the WBA, IBF and WBO belts. The last heavyweight champ to hold all the available belts was Lennox Lewis in 1999, before the WBO came along. Lewis beat Evander Holyfield to become undisputed, after a draw that Lewis dominated in the eyes of everyone in Madison Square Garden except one judge. Then Lewis decided against defending the WBA title against John Ruiz and was stripped. Ruiz was an imposter as a heavyweight and lost a blowout decision to Roy Jones Jr. It’s nearly impossible to dodge all of boxing’s irrationalities and collect all four titles, and now Usyk may be stripped of the IBF strap because he won’t fight mandatory challengers Daniel Dubois, whom he’s already beaten, or Filip Hrgovic.

It’s only relevant to the historians and the bureaucrats. The street knows who the bully is. Usyk’s first instinct, when he heard the decision, was to burst into tears, and Fury kissed him on the forehead when the bell rang.  It was the best gift Usyk could give to his people, who know exactly what’s real and what’s symbolic. There are no belts on a battlefield, No rematches, either.