Tyson Fury Was Told To Accept Oleksandr Usyk Was Better

Tony Bellew added fuel to that discussion this week when he discussed Fury's loss and the difficulty of facing Usyk.

“Tell it like it is. He was better than you. Tyson Fury spent 12 months degrading him and degrading him and insulting him,” Bellew said on the Fight Your Corner podcast.

“When he hit her it was like 'I was being robbed' no, she's amazing, I didn't think she was that good, she doesn't deserve any credit, which I don't like, when you get beaten by someone better than you, you just raise your hands.

“It kills him. That's what breaks his heart the most, that he met someone better than him. But he's not the only one, and he has to accept that,” Tony Bellew told Sky Sports.

Bellew's comments stand out because he met Usyk himself. Bellew was leading by two cards entering the eighth round of their 2018 undisputed cruiserweight fight before the stoppage.

“Oleksandr Usyk was the only person I was against, and my game plan was going well. Everything was going well,” Bellew said. “At the end of the seventh round I was up by two cards, drawing the third card, but I didn't know where I was at the beginning of the eighth round.

“He's the best fighter I've ever faced. His footwork was on another level. He took out everything I did, and he used it against me at the end. He's different. I've never faced anyone who could do what he did to me.”

The timing of Bellew's comments is interesting because Fury's career has looked very different since his first loss to Usyk. Fury clearly lost the rematch, retired for more than a year, then returned against Arslanbek Makhmudov, looking slower and more fluid than the version that dominated Wilder and knocked out Wladimir Klitschko earlier in his career.

Fury still won the battle, but the aura that once surrounded him never fully returned.