Tyson Fury versus Oleksandr Usyk: Size versus technique sets stage for classic heavyweight showdown

Winning boxing's undisputed heavyweight title has proven to be more difficult than winning an appeal with the IRS. It's been nearly 25 years since it happened, when Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas on Nov. 13, 1999. Only six men alive -- Lewis, Holyfield, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Buster Douglas and Riddick Bowe -- have won it. None have ever done it in the four-belt era.

So what Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are going to do on Saturday in Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a very rare and difficult task. 

Much has been made of boxing's decline, and to be sure, it's not nearly as big in the U.S. now as it was in the 1980s, and even in the 1980s with superstars like Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Larry Holmes, Roberto Duran, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor competing, it wasn't as big here as in the 1950s.

One of the major reasons for that is the inability to identify the champions. There are 17 weight classes in boxing now, and with the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF all handing out belts, there is the possibility for 68 different men to hold a version of a world title. On top of that, with the sanctioning bodies using interim titles, champions in recess, super champions and champions emeritus, it adds even more confusion.

That has caused some to walk away from the sport. It's changing for the better, though and while it won't change the sport overnight, the Fury-Usyk bout is the third undisputed championship match in May alone. On May 4 in Las Vegas, Canelo Alvarez successfully defended the undisputed super middleweight title by scoring a decision over Jaime Munguia. On May 6 in Tokyo, Naoya Inoue retained the undisputed super bantamweight title when he arose from a first-round knockdown to stop Luis Nery in the sixth.

Boxing being what it is, though, it's never clean and simple. And it's likely that no how good the fight on Saturday, no matter how impressive the winner appears, he won't defend the undisputed championship even once. First, history tells us that. When Douglas knocked out Tyson to win the undisputed title in 1990, he failed to defend it once, as he was kayoed in his first defense by Holyfield. Holyfield managed to defend it three times before losing it to Bowe.

Bowe threw the WBC belt in the trash rather than be forced to fight Lewis, and thus he never defended the undisputed title. And when Lewis beat Holyfield in 1999, he opted to defend against Michael Grant rather than the then-mandatory WBA challenger, John Ruiz. Ruiz went to court and sued, and so Lewis was stripped of the WBA belt.

In this case, it appears the IBF will strip the winner. Filip Hrgovic has been its mandatory challenger and he recently signed to fight Daniel Dubois on  June 1 in Riyadh. It's expected that fight will be held for the vacant title. The same thing happened last year, weeks after Terence Crawford knocked out Errol Spence to become undisputed welterweight champion, he was stripped by the IBF, which named Jaron Ennis its champion.

It's easy to focus on the bad, and while it's important to call it out for the sake of the betterment of the sport, sometimes it's better to focus on what is good about boxing. Talking about all of the bad can turn off the disaffected, and on the eve of a fight for the first undisputed heavyweight champion in a quarter of a century, it's important to focus on the good things which are occuring.

And what is good is that promoters are suddenly making the best fight the best on a regular basis. In addition to the other undisputed champions, Devin Haney had won all of the lightweight belts before moving up, and Inoue captured all of the bantamweight belts before jumping up to chase the 122-pound titles.

Unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev injured his knee, which forced postponement of his undisputed title fight with Dmitry Bivol from June 1 until sometime in the fall, but that bout is still expected to occur.

Usyk faces a Herculean task against the 6-9 Fury, who will have an edge of 28^1/2 pounds, six inches in height and seven inches in reach. Former unified champion Wladimir Klitschko, who lost his IBF-WBA-WBO belts to Fury in 2015, concedes that the size advantage is a massive edge for Fury. Fury weighed 262 Friday and Usyk was 233^1/2.

"Size matters," Klitschko said during the weigh-in show on DAZN Friday. "We know that the difference of two of the opponents is great, and big. We do know that Fury's taller and has a longer reach. But we know there is no other way to fight a strong fighter like A.J. and Usyk has shown twice how with the technique you can achieve whatever you want.

"It's not only about the size and the power, but it's also about the technique in boxing. I believe Oleksandr Usyk is one of the best technicians in modern boxing and I'm sure he'll do his job [Saturday]."

Fury is a -140 favorite at BetMGM to defeat Usyk, while Usyk is +105.

The fight will stream in the U.S. on PPV.com, DAZN and ESPN+. The pay-per-view will begin at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT. The Fury-Usyk fight is expected to begin sometime after 6 p.m. ET.