Spike O'Sullivan: Usyk to become untouchable as the best heavyweight of his generation 

In the past nine years I’ve had three different December fights and another in the first few weeks of January, which was the worst of all. Being stuck in camp and focusing on every last gram of a weight cut that’s looming over you while the rest of the world is horsing into mince pies and scrambling for the Maltesers in the Celebrations box is a serious pain. Season’s greetings? Not for those of us tasked with season’s beatings.

There’s probably a lot of things that Tyson Fury could do in a bit more moderation. But the Gypsy King is hardly going to change his ways at this stage. On Saturday night, he’s likely to get into a ring the heaviest he’s ever been, somewhere close to 20 stone. He’s hoping his weight can tip the scales. I’m not so sure.

Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are back in the desert to do it all again with most of the heavyweight hardware in the sport back on the line. The sands of time wouldn’t put too much of a dent in the place given that it’s just seven months since they first met back in May but it’s our job to dig through what’s there to see what might be different this time around. Can Fury avenge the first loss of his professional life or will Usyk cement his place as arguably the pound-for-pound king of the last 30-odd years? It’s a meaty one.

Whatever else about me, I think I’m pretty good at holding my hand up when I’m wrong. So I’ll freely admit 2024 hasn’t been my finest year for fight predictions. I hope ye haven’t been re-mortgaging your gaffs on the back of these columns because I’m probably running at a 30-70 clip. However one of the few I got spot on was the first Fury-Usyk bout. I pointed to Usyk’s purer boxing skills and his southpaw footwork being nightmarish for Fury. They sure were.

All of the noise that comes with Fury counted against him first time around too. His camp was disrupted due to a cut so he’d barely sparred at all. That’s bad luck and largely out of your control. But Fury’s father was out of control too — and just as big of an issue. John Fury is a professional dose and proved it by head-butting a member of Usyk’s team and then shouting above his son’s coaches in the corner in between rounds as the fight, and Tyson’s undefeated record, slipped away. SugarHill Steward and Andy Lee, two brilliant coaches, were forced to take a backseat to Fury Sr. It was a farce.

"Just myself [will be in the corner], Andy Lee and the cutman. Pretty much that's it,” Steward said this week. That’s a big and badly needed change. Fury has been sparring a lot more this time around. He’s been away in Malta for weeks and weeks on the most intense camp of his life. I know how big of a commitment it is being away from your loved ones like that so I have to respect it.

I hope tactically they’ve been drilling into a new approach too. Fury’s going to be nearly a full stone heavier than their first outing and he has to make that count. He needs to make it a scrappy, bully-boy fight. He already had a huge weight advantage. Now it’s even greater so stop acting the gombeen in there. Get into the clinch and throw that weight on Usyk’s shoulders. Sap his energy, bring in the physical dominance and then the power. Fury has been a killer. But it’s over two years since he knocked anyone out. Can he get back there?

We know that speed kills too though. And all of the speed is Usyk’s. I’ve written plenty in the past couple of years about how much I admire him as a man but trust me I admire him just as much as a fighter. He’s got big brass balls and all of the ability to back them up. If he was to win again he’d be up there with Manny Pacquiao in the pantheon of modern greats who’ve climbed divisions and conquered them all. To be up at heavyweight where he probably shouldn’t be, giving up so much size and weight advantage and compile the perfect record he has is phenomenal. His nimbleness is a gift but he can be lethal in a flash too. It’s a hell of a mix.

The rest of the card is not all that grabby. There’s one bout that caught my eye for the wrong reasons: Johnny Fisher against Dave Allen. It’s another heavyweight bout but doesn’t look nearly as close a contest as the main event. It feels like the kind of fight that shouldn’t have been made. I worry for Allen who’s a great guy. He’s spoken of all the wake-up calls he’s had in his career. I fear someone should have set an alarm before this one.

Ultimately though, the rest of the card doesn’t matter. It’s a night that’s about two men only. Usyk has a chance to become untouchable as the best heavyweight of the generation. Victory would give him two over Fury, two over Anthony Joshua and he’s already outclassed Daniel Dubois, the only other heavyweight title holder right now. That’s untouchable.

But first he has to handle a fired-up Fury. There was no moderation up on the stage on Thursday in Riyadh when the two of them engaged in what the social media hype people told us was the longest stare-down ever — 11 minutes. When they finally broke, Fury dug deep into his bag of trash talk. Even if it is the season of giving, it wasn’t pretty stuff.

It is, of course, the season of receiving too and I think Fury ultimately will again be on the receiving end. Things will be different to a point — he’ll be more aggressive and sharper too but I’m still not sure it’s enough. I’m also not sure it makes it to the scorecards this time. It’d be wise to expect a stoppage and I think Usyk will be the one doing the stopping. Maybe December fights aren’t so bad after all. Let’s all indulge on this one.