Why Fury and Oleksandr Usyk aren’t just fighting for belts and bragging rights

If you think that nine different belts, $100m and bragging rights are the only prizes in Saturday night’s undisputed fight in Saudi Arabia, then you would be wrong.

Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are competing in the first undisputed heavyweight championship fight since late 1999, and they are fighting for the right to walk in the giant footsteps of sport’s greatest and best-known champions. The heavyweight champion, an undisputed version, is a serious contender for sport’s finest champion.

The heavyweight championship of the world was once known as the richest prize in sport, the champion was the most recognisable face in the sport and, in the case of Muhammad Ali, often the most recognisable man on the planet.

The heavyweight championship was a cherished title, the greatest and often the most controversial boxers held the crown; Jack Johnson was the sport’s first Black champion, winning the title in 1908, Joe Louis was a hero, Rocky Marciano was unbeaten, Ali was christened “the greatest”, Mike Tyson was the most notorious, and Lennox Lewis was regal.

There have been others: great fighters like George Foreman, Jack Dempsey and Larry Holmes who reigned supreme as heavyweight champion – men on any list of the 10 greatest fighters in history.

Louis, Marciano, Ali, Lewis and Tyson are names that crossed over from the boundaries of the four ropes and became mainstream idols and villains; Usyk and Fury are on that same path.

Lewis has been in Saudi this week, talking about winning his fight in 1999 with Evander Holyfield and becoming the last undisputed champion, the last in the noble line. Lewis still has that title in his heart. “I guess I will have to hand it over after the fight,” he said, and he was not joking. “Being the undisputed is all that matters; it means you are the best. It’s that simple, no debate.”

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In Ukraine, Usyk is more than a boxing hero, more than a successful sportsperson; in the extremes of war, he has become an idol, a man worthy of a wartorn nation’s respect. He fights for his people and that is both a burden and an inspiration. Usyk would be a satisfying undisputed champion, a champion of the people, a folk hero, Ukraine’s most adored son. That is a burden.

Fury has that same common touch with a few eccentric twists; he could buy a Lamborghini with cash in his back pocket and then fill up his 20-year-old Opel with petrol from a can. Fury also has a natural nemesis on his doorstep in Anthony Joshua; their fight has been on and off for nearly four years. It has been discussed for longer, but it was once made and announced in the early summer of 2020. If Fury wins, he must fight Joshua; it would be hard to be the undisputed champion of the world, the King of Morecambe, when there is a man at the bottom of the M1 near Watford desperate for what you have.

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Joshua has been dreaming of holding all four belts for a long, long time. Just before he lost his three world titles in New York in 2019, there were talks of matching him with Deontay Wilder – then a champion – for all four belts. Joshua has a sense of history, and he knew winning all four belts was a guarantee of a place in the history books.

A Joshua and Fury fight is now bigger than ever. If Fury loses, it remains an enormous fight; a defeat for the “Gypsy King” will not change any desires to make a match-up with Joshua. It is an inevitable fight.

First, it is Saturday and the grand prize, the old trophy, a title that never needed the gold and diamond belts that will be on offer at the end of Fury vs Usyk. The winner will be boxing’s king, and that is an old-fashioned title, carried with pride by some of sport’s finest athletes.