Arum: "Tyson Looked Terrible in Last Fight"

In a comment for the YouTube channel BoxNation, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum commented on the upcoming fight for the undisputed world heavyweight championship (over 90.7 kg) between the holder of the WBA, WBO, IBF, and IBO titles Oleksandr Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) and WBC champion Tyson Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs).

"I believe Fury vs. Usyk will be a great fight. It's undoubtedly a historic fight. Let's hope this match lives up to what it signifies. As soon as this fight was made, I always felt that Fury was a big favorite because I thought his size and boxing abilities would be too much for Usyk. I was looking at this fight as 3 to 4 in favor of Tyson Fury. But I was very concerned about how Tyson looked in his last fight against Ngannou in Riyadh. I was there and I think he looked terrible. I have two explanations. First, he prepared very poorly for that fight. Or second, as the years go by, we do not perform as well physically as when we were younger. Will we see this in Tyson based on the fight against Ngannou, or did he not take that fight seriously and didn’t prepare, that's what we will find out on May 18th. A cut? It happens. One of the greatest fights we remember, 'The Rumble in the Jungle,' Ali vs. Foreman. People forget that fight was also postponed, I believe, for six weeks because Foreman got a cut in training. It's boxing, these things happen. Fighters wear headgear, but there's still a lot of contact, and injuries can occur. It's not something that hasn't happened before or hasn't occurred in major heavyweight division fights. It has. Am I confident in Fury's victory? Yes. I mean, if Tyson is at his peak, if this is the Tyson Fury who fought Wilder twice, fought Whyte, then neither Usyk nor any other heavyweight can beat him. But that's an assumption. Is that still in him? We'll see on May 18th. My friend Frank Warren is right – it's a huge fight because there are so many questions. I look at Fury's fight against Ngannou, how he worked with him, and I have a lot of questions. Especially after we saw how easily Joshua dealt with him. But this is a sport where they meet one-on-one. It's not a team sport, where one bad athlete doesn't impact the team as much. In boxing, it's one-on-one, and that's it," said Arum.

The fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury will take place on May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.