Round 1
Fury stakes the center of the ring and paws with his left hand as Usyk looks to negotiate a way inside his opponent’s seven-inch reach advantage. Each man is targeting the other’s body with their early offerings. Usyk, six inches shorter, appears even smaller under the bright lights than at the weigh-in. Usyk lands a series of crisp southpaw jabs to Fury’s ribcage. Fury backs up into the red corner, throws his arms on the ropes and mugs at his opponent while shaking his head defiantly. Usyk connects flush with an overhand left. Easy round for the Ukrainian despite Fury’s theatrics.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk
Round 2
Usyk gets Fury’s attention with a flush shot early in the round and Fury isn’t laughing any more. The smaller man is walking down the bigger man and landing the cleaner and more effective shots. Fury deftly lands a right hand while in retreat. The Briton then connects with a nifty shovel uppercut to the body, but it does nothing to deter Usyk, who keeps marching forward. Usyk’s relentless pressure is making Fury uncomfortable, even as the Gypsy King continues to score with the right hand to the body. Close round.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Usyk
Round 3
Fury, who’s almost exclusively fought going backwards from the opening bell, is using his upper-body movement to counter Usyk’s aggression and find a home for the right hand. The fearless Usyk continues to barrel inside and use pressure to negate his opponent’s yawning advantages in height (six inches) and reach (seven). After two rounds Fury is finally stepping up the workrate and scoring consistently with his punishing jab. Usyk is complaining to referee Mark Nelson about hits behind the head. A very, very close fight after three sessions.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Fury Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Fury
Round 4
Fury is really in his groove now, boxing beautifully with that signature herky-jerky, in-and-out movement, scoring with the jab and punctuating exchanges with the right uppercut. He lands a crisp right hand moving forward that Usyk takes well but definitely felt. Usyk continues to operate with unyielding pressure, landing overhand lefts that are troubling Fury, it appears, less than in the earlier frames. Through four of the scheduled 12 rounds, this is a narrow fight between a pair of top, evenly matched operators.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Fury Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury
Round 5
An emboldened Fury is moving forward for the first time all night. He’s started to zero in on Usyk’s midsection and he’s finding the target. Excellent body work from the lineal champion. His mugging and clowning of the Ukrainian is not authentic: he’s in a serious fight. Fury lands a shot well below the beltline that Usyk is visibly unhappy with, but the action continues uninterrupted. Fury is scoring effectively to the body and Usyk is feeling these blows. The Ukrainian has sacrificed his elusiveness for aggression and is poorer for it at this point. Best round of the fight for Fury.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Fury Judges 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury
Round 6
The body shots on Usyk have taken their toll but the Ukrainian uncorks a sizzling right hand against the run of play. That wobbled Fury! But the Gypsy King, calling on his almost superhuman punch resistance, appears to recover quickly. Now Fury lands a throttling shot, a devastating uppercut! And Usyk looks to be hurt! The Ukrainian is backpedalling with a minute to go in the sixth. Fury appears in control, reeling off educated punches in combination, stalking his wounded foe. He finishes the round with his gloves behind his back, taunting his smaller opponent before they retreat to their respective corners.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Fury Judges 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury
Round 7
Fury remains in control for the opening half of the seventh, but we’re seeing an improved output from Usyk, both in quantity and quality, as he continues to try and find a way to work his way inside Fury’s physical advantages. Usyk lands a very hard left hand with Fury cornered near the end of the round, but Fury fires back immediately and with flair. That last burst just before the bell was just enough to nick a close round for the Ukrainian. Notably, Usyk has all but given up his work to the body, which had yielded such effective gains earlier on.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury
Round 8
Usyk detonates a crunching right hand upstairs and Fury paws at his nose. The Ukrainian, who appeared en route to defeat moments ago, is back in this! Now he’s letting his hands go and he’s battering Fury, rallying back to dominate the exchanges. A massive right hand from Usyk appears to have damaged Fury’s right eye, opening a cut. Fury bleeding, red everywhere. Usyk is digging in like the great fighters do! Fury’s body language not great. A classic in the offing with four scheduled rounds to go, nothing to separate these heavyweight warriors!
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk
Round 9
Clearly the blood is bothering Fury. Suddenly Usyk has found consistent purchase with the overhand left, a punch we haven’t seen much from him tonight. One then another and Fury has been rattled! Usyk unloads with a fusillade of shots with Fury trapped along the ropes and the Gypsy King is in serious trouble as the crowd swells! The bigger man is hurt, now caroming all over the ring! The referee might stop it! Fury has been down in the past but we’ve never seen him hurt this badly! He stumbles again and falls back into the corner, kept upright only by the turnbuckle, and Nelson correctly rules it a knockdown. Fury is down for the eighth time in his career! Makes it to his feet but he’s undoubtedly been saved by the bell!
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-8 Usyk Judges 10-8 Usyk; 10-8 Usyk; 10-8 Usyk
Round 10
Fury has 60 seconds to recover from that beatdown. Can he survive this round? No one would have objected had Nelson waved it off in the ninth, but the third man did well to measure the occasion of the moment not unlike Jack Reiss in the first Wilder fight. Curiously, Usyk is not pressing the issue, conceding Fury precious time and space to recover. Usyk scores with sparse overhand lefts, consistently. The busier Ukrainian surely does enough to win the round on activity, but it might go down as a fatal mistake after he allowed Fury three minutes to recover from the brink of defeat.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Usyk
Round 11
Usyk continues to land the cleaner, more effective shots as this heart-pounding affair enters the championship rounds. Both men, for all the extraordinary conditioning they have shown in this fight, appear visibly exhausted with six minutes to go. Can the former unified cruiserweight champion close the show to hand Fury the first defeat of his professional career? The Gypsy King has rebounded admirably from the ninth-round abyss, but he will almost certainly needs a knockout to keep his belts after Usyk shades another close round.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Usyk; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Usyk
Round 12
Fury needs to step to Usyk in this final round and he’s not doing it. Usyk is coming forward in the opening half of the frame, landing one left hand after another, putting a stamp on a performance for the ages. Fury rallies back hard over the final minute with a couple of vicious right hands, but Usyk continues to accumulate points with his left, giving his opponent no quarter at a point when he most needs an eye-catching moment. An exhilarating performance between the two best heavyweights on the planet.
How they scored it Bryan Graham 10-9 Usyk Judges 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury; 10-9 Fury
Final scores
Bryan Graham 116-111 Usyk Judges 115-112 Usyk; 114-113 Fury; 114-113 Usyk
