UFC legends Alexander Volkanovski and Michael Bisping offered fans remarkably similar breakdowns of Fury vs Usyk yet were divided of their final picks.
This weekend’s enormous boxing clash between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk has decidedly split the MMA community, including two legendary UFC fighters who actually know a thing or two about becoming undisputed champions.
Whilst each Michael Bisping and Alexander Volkanovski touched on lots of the same points of their respective breakdowns of the heavyweight fight, they ultimately got here to very different predictions on who they think will emerge victorious on Saturday evening.
Michael Bisping is siding with Oleksandr Usyk to get the underdog win
Despite being the significantly smaller fighter with less experience in top-level heavyweight boxing, former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping is picking Oleksandr Usyk to take the 0 from Fury’s undefeated record.
“In fact, the reach of Fury goes to be a problem and Tyson’s fast, he moves his head well and there’s a reason why he’s undefeated,” said Bisping via his official YouTube channel: “Full respect to Tyson Fury, I just think that Usyk goes to get it done.”
“I’ve got Usyk on this one and I’m basing quite a lot of it on those two victories over Anthony Joshua.”
“We spoke about it the opposite day, [about] MMA math and boxing math not stacking up, but I believe it does slightly bit [in this fight],” he stated, reminiscent of Usyk’s domination of Joshua, followed by AJ’s demolition of Francis Ngannou after a lackluster Fury could only scrape past ‘The Predator’ on points last trip.
“Usyk is used to fighting larger guys, that is nothing latest for him, I believe he’s the faster guy with higher footwork and higher technicalities.”
In a separate breakdown video, Bisping went further into detail about how Usyk can get the higher of ‘The Gypsy King’ in Riyadh this weekend, and again the UFC veteran argued that the Ukrainian can win the fight together with his superior movement:
“It’s the footwork, it’s the speed, it’s the angles, it’s the pressure on the within after which being disciplined to be all the best way out when he’s not.”
“It’s also that fighting spirit, it’s that championship heart, it’s the people of Ukraine that has got to encourage and he’s going to walk into that ring feeling the pressure, but pressure makes diamonds.”
Despite acknowledging that the outspoken Englishman has major physical benefits by way of height and weight, Bisping returned to the concept that facing a large like Fury is nothing latest to ‘The Cat’.
“Usyk not being the tallest cruiserweight and being at heavyweight, he’s used to fighting the taller guys, so I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for him. Usyk goes to be all about footwork and speed and movement.”
Alexander Volkanovski argues Tyson Fury will get his hand raised
Despite sharing their prediction videos from opposite sides of the world, former UFC featherweight king Alexander Volkanovski gave a remarkably similar breakdown of this weekend’s boxing showcase.
“Usyk’s very unorthodox, he’s got his own unique style and he’s smaller, but he uses that so well against these larger guys [and] his footwork may be very, very slick.”
“I do remember Tyson talking about one among his hardest fights and it was against someone smaller, and he said that he had big problems with him so that may be a factor, but he’s aware of that awkward style [of Usyk] now.”
Yet despite touching on lots of the same ideas as ‘The Count’, Volkanovski ultimately forecast that the footwork of Usyk wouldn’t be enough to beat the scale advantage possessed by the British juggernaut and predicted that Fury would emerge victorious from the Ring of Fire.
“It’s a difficult one because they’re each great fighters but I’m going to go along with the scale here and Tyson Fury… I really like watching Usyk fight, but I believe with the scale, Tyson’s going to get the win.”
Volkanovski also touched on the ‘math’ of the situation regarding Joshua and Ngannou as previous opponents.
Yet as an alternative of siding with boxing math working in favor of Usyk, the previous featherweight champion argued that fans shouldn’t be taking too many lessons away from Fury’s performance against Ngannou.
“I just think that the scale and the work he’s going to do in preparation, I reckon he’s went above and beyond, he’s got something to prove after the last one, so I believe that’s going to be the case with this one.”
Two excellent breakdowns of what needs to be a wonderful night of fights, Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk goes down this weekend from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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