Fury has a problem - one bold move could save him

Smart fighters win rematches, which could be a problem for Tyson Fury in late December when he fights Oleksandr Usyk again, following last May’s defeat in Riyadh.

- STEVE BUNCE

The great American boxing trainer and guru Manny Steward put forward the idea that in any rematch, the smart boxer, having lost the first fight, will win the second fight. It was one of Steward’s cherished little gems, one dependent on one of the boxers being smarter than the other – that is the problem for Fury: Usyk is his equal in the boxing brains department.

Steward talked about his theory one night in Las Vegas, a few days before Lennox Lewis met Hasim Rahman in their hot rematch; seven months earlier in 2001, Rahman had shocked the boxing world by dropping and stopping Lewis in South Africa. The defeat was stupid, the revenge was clever.

Lewis, who passed on his undisputed champion mantle to Usyk in May, had already changed the result in two rematches before he climbed through the ropes and knocked out Rahman in four rounds at the Mandalay Bay. In 1997, Lewis beat Oliver McCall and two years later in 1999, Lewis outpointed Evander Holyfield. In the Holyfield rematch, Lewis was smarter; in the McCall rematch, Lewis was simply coherent.