Oleksandr Usyk has ended Tyson Fury’s time at the top… let’s hope time is called on Saudi Arabia staging boxing too
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IT’S over for Tyson Fury at boxing’s top table, for a golden age of British heavyweights and for Saudi mega-fights. Fury will have to content himself with a final mega payday in the sport’s second division. What once would have been the biggest British fight of all time between Fury and Anthony Joshua will now be little more than a cash cow for two fighters who have been dismantled by Oleksander Usyk, lacking prestige, meaning or belts.
![[Oleksandr Usyk was the worthy winner and has dismantled British boxing icons]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/oleksandr-usyk-following-wba-wbc-959065072_666d44.jpg?strip=all&w=837)
For all the griping and sour-graping of the Gypsy King and his promoter Frank Warren in the immediate aftermath of his second straight defeat by Usyk, this was conclusive. READ MORE on a absolute blockbuster night in Riyadh... Usyk is simply too good — and also too low on box-office charisma. This fight, between the foremost heavyweights of the age, played out to near-silence in a 26,000-seater arena which was not even full.
![[Tyson Fury's time at the top has been ended by the Ukrainian]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tyson-fury-following-wba-wbc-959066293_d1d0c9.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Daniel Dubois, Britain’s IBF champion, got into the ring to call out Usyk but we have already seen the Ukrainian knock him out last year — albeit with some controversy over a borderline low blow from the Brit in the fifth round. After years of A-list fights involving Fury and Joshua, this era is done.
![[Usyk rightly won on points by unanimous decision in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/b07def35-cd9e-4b61-82fe-53c939726363.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Usyk has outpointed them both, fair and square, twice in just over three years. He is an utterly worthy champion. An all-time great fighter and an admirable man from an occupied nation, fighting a bloody war against Russian aggression. Usyk is 37 and has no credible opponents left to conquer. He has neither the knock-out power — after all, the former undisputed cruiserweight king conceded four stones to Fury — nor the lippiness to sell too many more jackpot fights.
![[Turki Alalashikh threw his weight behind Tyson Fury]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/oleksandr-usyk-tyson-fury-chairman-958568503.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
