Paulie Malignaggi has told talkSPORT why he thinks Oleksandr Usyk will repeat history against Tyson Fury.
The pair are set to share the ring again on December 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after Usyk conquered the Brit in their first meeting.
Back in May, Furry seemed to be finding his rhythm in the pair’s fight around the halfway point.
‘The Gypsy King’ even buckled Usyk’s legs with an uppercut in the sixth round, before the second half of the bout took a drastic turn.
Usyk broke Fury’s nose with a devastating shot in round eight and proceeded to floor the 36-year-old in the ninth, sending him clinging to the ropes for dear life.
And this would be enough for ‘The Cat’, who proceeded to claim a fairly convincing split-decision victory – in the eyes of the majority in attendance anyway.
According to the scorecard, however, the crucial knockdown and subsequent rounds were key in deciding the contest.
“Because fighters don’t fight every three, four weeks like they did in the old days, It’s very hard to predict this fight,” Malignaggi told Jim White, Simon Jordan and Spencer Oliver on Friday.
“…You have to become—you have to do both a boxing analysis and a psychoanalysis.
“You have to see where these guys’ heads are at as well, especially when it comes to a guy like Tyson Fury, who seems motivated with all his best intentions.
“And we’ve seen what happens when Fury is motivated like this.
“We’ve seen that before the Wladimir Klitschko fight and nobody really believed in him. We’ve seen this before the Deontay Wilder rematch when nobody really believed in him.
4
“And both times before those fights, before the Wilder rematch and before the Klitschko fight, he went into this sort of elimination of all distractions and you were left wondering, okay, yeah, what is he actually doing?
“And then he really actually did something special. So you end up now with this same kind of mindset, but then you’re wondering at this age, can he still do it?
Malignaggi is a former two-weight boxing champion and came out of retirment in 2019 to fight for Conor McGregor’s bare-knuckle fighting promotion.
He lost his only bout under the BKFC banner to McGregor’s former teammate Artem Lobov.
“I know Usyk is a little older. I do know that,” Malignaggi added.
“But Usyk has always lived a more disciplined life from a living perspective, but also from a mental stability perspective.
4
4
“He’s always the same person mentally. These Eastern guys, they’re not that emotional when it comes to that. While Westerners, we tend to be a little bit more emotional.”
Oliver interrupted to say that Fury is going into the rematch fresh off a defeat for the first time, claiming that will be ‘the key difference’.
He also agreed that the result of the rematch will depend on each fighter’s lifestyle outside of the ring.
“That’s definitely one of the analysis we have to have here,” Malignaggi responded.
“Because it catches up in conjunction with. And what’s in conjunction with part of this fight?…It’s the three fights with Wilder.
“I don’t know if Wilder or Fury are the same after those three fights…and now Oleksandr Usyk, a former cruiserweight, was hurting him and dropping him in the first fight.
“So what is the lingering effects of the three-fight trilogy with Wilder, who is devastating, maybe one of the most devastating punchers in history?
“But those things sometimes stay with you as well. So it’s not just lifestyle. It’s also the tough fights you’ve had. Most guys don’t survive one night with Deontay Wilder.
“Fury not only beat Wilder two out of three fights and probably should have won all three, but also survived all three fights.
“I picked Fury the first time and I lost. But I’m going to pick Usyk. I don’t think Fury has it anymore.
“I’m not sure he has it in the same way anymore. And it’s not a disrespect to Fury. I’ve always loved Fury. I’m just not sure he can be – he can summon it back anymore.”