Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk won’t be scored by six judges as the major rule change has been rejected.
Fury and Usyk meet on May 18 to crown the first undisputed world champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999. The fight was supposed to take place in February but Fury pulled out after being cut over his eye in sparring. WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman wanted six judges to score the fight instead of three as he was worried about the possibility of a bad scorecard ruining the outcome.
Sulaiman believed that introducing six judges would avoid any judging controversies, but Fury’s American promoter Bob Arum has shut down the idea. “You don’t put in something like that for the first time dealing with a major fight from the standpoint of visibility and importance,” Arum told Boxing Scene.
“Maybe six judges are better than three. I doubt that, but maybe. Nobody knows because it hasn’t been done, but at least you experiment with that with fights that are not as prominent.” With all due respect to my friend Mauricio – who’s a really good guy, loves the sport of boxing and has done a great job with the WBC – I wouldn’t do it for this fight.
“I wouldn’t say that you don’t experiment with it for another fight. I don’t believe the judging becomes better because you have six judges rather than three.” Fury had to pick himself up off the canvas to controversially win on points in his last fight against former UFC champion, Francis Ngannou.
Usyk has been out of the ring for even longer as he stopped Daniel Dubois last August in a fight that was overshadowed by a controversial low blow. Former world champion Johnny Nelson thinks the undisputed fight won’t have a definitive ending as he told Sky Sports: “I had a dream and Tyson Fury was in this dream. I’m trying to understand what I saw. It was controversial and Fury was not happy.
“I don’t know if that meant Tyson Fury won controversially or Tyson lost controversially, but I know there is a controversial decision with this fight. Mark that down! Tyson was p***ed off, I don’t know if he lost or won controversially, but there is going to be controversy!”