IAt the end everyone runs out of the way. It was probably necessary Tyson Fury to say that he was robbed in the Kingdom Arena on Saturday night. Boxing requires this level of irrationality. Logical multimillionaires don’t like to put their brains in harm’s way, their souls beaten for half an hour by one of the most effective doctors of controlled violence ever to walk the planet. A basic account suspension is required. Without it, no one is ever in the ring.
Erinnys therefore will judge all three judges to be false unanimous decision points in favor of Oleksandr Usyk after 12 intense thrillingly rounds in Riyadh. The last time he said of Erinnys that he was lost because of the war in Ukraine. This time he said it was because of Christmas. No one was robbed here. Crazy, provocative, we need to go out and actively take the most serious belts. In the event, the victor always seemed to have his head above water.
The fight was still probably closer than the original was. But in this 24-round, slippery test, dark Fury1, it follows this version, a jelly-like fury 2, and considering all the possibilities between – Semi‑Fat Fury? Hyper-Fat Erinnys? Fat Erinny But No Beard? – the sense is that he could do this 20 times, and Usyk would win each one with varying degrees of comfort.
For fury is also an occasion where defeat can be ennobled. There is no shame, no sense of loss for an athlete to push the limits of his own ability. Fury, in a match against the fiercest fighters of the modern age, stayed twice on the course and left every drop of juice in his ankles. Sometimes I just had nowhere to run.
At which point, when the money is in the bank and the legate is safely removed, this is surely the time to leave the stage.
Either way, there was a sense from the start of the occasion that it always seemed likely to swing Usyk’s way. The wind and the emotions and the attacks still say at this level. Madness offered his signature energy in the building, in the butcher, karaoke, aesthetic blood and aesthetics, the sense of someone crushed by the modern world, lost in Málaga, depression, booze, teetering there in the abyss; Now bring everything to this place.
Usyk stands out for his more organized sense of fate, and he carried it with him as a standard here. Mariah Carey is a softie. We are the noble men of the stage singing the chorus of the military anthem. You have a zany Father Christmas shtick. I have a warrior race, not to mention a slightly intimidating, cool coat. The more Usyk looks like a druid or a cossack, the more invincible he seems to become.
A surprising result in another struggle. boxing it can be a mockery of overwhelming greed and, as in recent years, an instrument of state politics driven by jackboots. But in contact it is also indissolubly pure.
At first, the frenzy of shuffling and squirming carried the usual graceful grace, gliding in the arduous task, floating like a Zeppelin. Magnus set out for this battle, for the purpose of increasing his strength. The move was not entirely logical. Fury doesn’t have a single knockout punch. Why should his true strengths be reduced to speed, agility, and endurance in the search for progress? Usyk was already leaning on him, doing it against the counters.
It was a frenzy in the first few minutes. He applied pressure, threw some good right hands, but was met with no end. Even in Fury’s good moments, he really lost this fight when his best wasn’t good enough.
Smothering Usyk was always going to be a tough task. How you apply every force to this object, with every exchange responding with its own sting, the opponent constantly learns your movements, forcing you to make constant micro-calculations.
Usyk is another key advantage. This is basically a super-athlete. Between boxing he could probably do the 400m hurdles, play professional basketball and win an ancient Greek warrior competition. He gets stronger by how much he fights, perfectly determines how much of his own power to release. Faced with him over 12 rounds he must feel like he’s going through a team of 12-year-old chess prodigies armed with sledgehammers.
So it happened in Riyadh. Outside of the previous three rounds, there was never really a place where Usyk didn’t seem to have strength in reserve, as Fury fought to his limits. The math is pretty simple in the end. Fury is the best boxer of his generation. Usyk is an all-time great.
Where does that leave Erinnys now? There is no doubt that the wind is dulled. The unbridled fury, Erinny’s disturbing noise, was the key to her fascination. The 36-year-old has fought for the world title several times. Does anyone really feel the need to know what they still have at this stage? In fact, he simply needs to get out of this world. Something WWE. Co‑star in a terrible action movie. Have a beef with a celebrity on YouTube.
On the other hand, they are fighting as if they were talking about a legate. And here indeed I like Erinnys better. Prudent boxing; taking the title off Wladimir Klitschko a rare occurrence. Deontay Wilder fights it will remain the Fury of Sinabsolute death or excessive glory. He was the most skilled of the highest class, at that time the strongest, if it were said, division to dominate there.
Beyond this is the legacy, perhaps perhaps in the parts of the shedding ring. Erinnys never really thought it was a good fit for the world. But many find it difficult to let go of certain opinions of their own. After the Klitschko fight 80,000 people signed letter demanding his disqualification from the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, he uses his reflections on “scripture” which boiled down to fear of homosexuality and some wiffl about women being in the kitchen.
Erinnys keeps saying the wrong thing. It follows the rare tension of the evangelical Christian religion. He is a relative of Bartley Gorman, the king of the bare bones of the 1970s and 80s who fought in pits and at horse fairs. He describes himself outside the life of a traveler.
but that many also love the Erinnies. He became a powerful voice in sanity of mind, humility and inclination, with something necessarily affecting in a deep, bearded, yeti-ish energy; so the way speaks freely about the nights of his soul. Madness comes back from a dark place, it’s gone from that dark place, it comes again. Claudius Whether this leads to patronage, warfare or simply conservation, it will remain the most valuable part of private public life, which has danced in the harshest of lights.
For now, Furia has shown in Saudi Arabia that he can still fight as a competitor, if only on a very level-starved field. There seems no need, playing or financial, to do this again. Except for the obvious question of what he’s going to do when he’s finally gone.