The highly anticipated rematch between legendary heavyweights Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury is on for Dec. 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Turki Alalshikh, head of the Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Fund, announced the news Wednesday.
Usyk came close to knocking out Fury earlier this month in Riyadh but ultimately won a close split decision to unify the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO world heavyweight titles and improve to 22-0 as a professional. Fury now holds a record of 34-1-1.
Usyk did not complain at the referee for possibly saving Fury from a knockout with a stand-up count “because we are the winner … No knockout, no problem.” Fury, however, had a lot to complain in his post-fight interviews, even claiming that judges scored the bout for Usyk because of the conflict involving his home country of Ukraine.
“I believe I won that fight,” Fury said in the ring. “I believe he won a few of the rounds but I believe I won the majority of them. We both put on a good fight, the best we could do. His country’s at war so people are siding with the country at war. Make no mistake, I won that fight, in my opinion. I’ll be back. I’ve got a rematch clause. We’ll run it back October.”
Fury was initially aiming at October for the rematch, but will have to wait two more months to get back in the ring with Usyk.
“I always say it’s about getting paid and getting laid,” Fury said at the the post-fight press conference. “We did that tonight. I thank Oleksandr for the good fight. It was a close fight, you know? I believe I thought I did enough, but I’m not a judge. I can’t judge a fight while I’m boxing it. If they would have said to me in the last round or whatever, ‘You’re down, go out and try and finish him,’ I would have done that. But everyone in the corner believed we were up. All I had to do was just keep boxing, do what I was doing, and I thought we were getting it. But it was what it was. I’m not going to cry about spilled milk.”
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