Should Fury Be Stripped, Will Dubois Beat Usyk?

Tyson Fury’s failure to defend his WBC heavyweight title in over 15 months has raised suggestions that he should be stripped. 

The ‘Gypsy King’ has failed to satisfy the boxing community of late with claims that he was responsible for the breakdown in talks for the undisputed fight with Oleksandr Usyk.

This was on the grounds that the Ukrainian had agreed to a less-than-favorable 70-30 split. But as that fight broke down, Fury failed to secure another.

His promoter, Frank Warren, has teased a ‘game changing’ fight for Fury with reports that he could fight Francis Ngannou or Jon Jones. However, this fight would be far from ideal if he were to fight Usyk.

One thing that has not helped Fury has been the WBC’s failure to demand a mandatory.

And yet, this has been hindered by the failure of Deontay Wilder and Andy Ruiz Jr. to agree to fight for the WBC interim title, despite being ordered to do so. 

But that has been something which the WBC has wanted to do. 

"That was announced since November. We’ve been patiently trying to do that. We didn’t push it in the hope that Fury would fight Usyk. So that was all the way to March [when the Fury-Usyk negotiations collapsed]. So we have to take some decisions."

"That’s a possibility. If Wilder and Ruiz are not fighting for the final elimination, Joshua’s right there at No 3. That’s possible," WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman

But given that the heavyweight division has not seen an undisputed champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield, the boxing community were not too pleased to see the division being held up. 

Social Media Reaction

Fury doesn't wanna face any top heavyweights, so he can claim to hes fanboys fans hes the best ever still. He wants to retire rich and undefeated. He will NEVER fight usyk, he needs to be stripped.

— REISS (@reece_duran) July 6, 2023

Tyson fury has become a joke and if it’s true his fighting a ufc fighter next he needs to be stripped

— chris king (@kingyyid) July 4, 2023

It really is about time the @WBCBoxing stripped Tyson Fury of the belt and encouraged boxers to once again compete for it.
Fury isn’t going to fight again he’s retired and is just messing about

— Sir Arthur Shitpeas MP ⚜️ (@AShitpeas) July 2, 2023

Usyk vs. Dubois

One man who has not found it difficult to have a mandatory is Usyk. The Ukrainian is set to face Daniel Dubois on August 26th, 2023.

The Brit’s last fight was a stoppage win over Kevin Lerena, despite the WBA ‘regular’ champion hitting the canvas three times. 

It had also transpired that Dubois had injured his knee/ankle in a fight that could have gone either way. But rather than have any worries over his fitness, the Brit vowed to shock the world by beating Usyk. 

"I want to shock the world. I want to take him out and end the Usyk reign. You got to be crazy in there. You got to fight like a man possessed to beat him. A knockout for sure. He’s definitely going down. And the NEW," Dubois

Those sentiments have also been echoed by Dubois’ promoter, Frank Warren, who has backed his fighter to come out on top.

"His two fights with [Anthony Joshua], AJ weren’t at the races, he was on the back foot all the time. For me, AJ is not the fighter he was.

"I look at that, I look at [Daniel] and I just know that’s he powerful, he’s got a good jab, he’s faster than people think. If Usyk gets clipped and tastes some of that power it’s gonna be interesting to see how he reacts.

"Usyk hasn’t had a performance that has been a jaw-dropping and dramatic performance. No disrespect, he’s done what he has to do, but I feel Daniel will be in the right place at the right time,” Warren stated

Nevertheless, the odds are very much against Dubois. Not only is Usyk undefeated, his performances of late have shown that he is very hard to beat.

The unified champion managed to neutralise a much bigger Joshua on two occasions. And in doing so, Usyk was on the brink of stopping ‘AJ’ in the first fight only to be saved by the bell in the last round.

Meanwhile, Dubois has already shown a tendency to give up in fights. His loss to Joe Joyce was testament to that, as Dubois took a knee.

While it was clear that he was having problems with his eye sight, the fact of the matter is that the fighter did not go out on his own terms.

And on top of that, Dubois will have to deal with a hostile crowd. Usyk’s fight will take place in Poland, given that Ukraine has been ruled out due to the war with Russia.

But as Ukraine and Poland have a strong relationship, Dubois will be up against it. And Wilder’s trainer, Malik Scott, saw things playing out negatively for Dubois. 

He backed Usyk to be too skilful for the Brit in what would be a one-sided affair.

"Usyk [wins]. Daniel Dubois to me doesn’t have the pedigree, he doesn’t have the mindset. His mind is not that open to compete against Usyk. Now as far as size and strength and power. Is he a big man that has strength? Yeah. But you take that away, it’s gonna be easy pickings for Usyk," Scott stated

Usyk may be the favorite, but heavyweight boxing has shown that it can cause upsets.

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