Carl Froch: "Fury is Slowing Down"

Former world super middleweight champion Carl Froch, in an interview with TalkSPORT, commented on the condition of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) ahead of his fight against WBA, WBO, IBO, and IBF heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs).

"I think I'm not wrong in saying Fury is slowing down. He's not using as many feints before striking. Now, it's just a light deception. He's been down 4-5 times in the last 70 rounds. He's getting older, putting on too much extra weight between fights. He even weighed in at 165 kg. He's not as heavy now but has belly fat.

At 35-36 years old, age really starts to show. I retired at 36 because it was hard for me to make 76 kg. I know Fury doesn't have to worry about this because there's no limit in heavyweight, but he still needs to maintain an optimal weight, which is around 117.5 kg.

So, Tyson needs to slim down to that weight if he wants to stay at the top level. But it gets harder to lose weight with age. He talks about having 5 more fights - I don't know how realistic that is. I hope he can sort out Usyk and become the undisputed."

The fight for the absolute heavyweight title (over 90.7 kg) between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk is scheduled for May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.