Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury’s second fight took boxing by storm earlier this month, as Fury sought revenge against Usyk after losing out in May 2018. Unfortunately for Fury, his exhaustive preparations – isolated from family and friends in order to fine tune his skills – proved futile as Usyk won by unanimous decision a second time round.
Initial pay-per-view revenue generated between Usyk and Povetkin had exceeded $50 million with over 1.5 million buys predominantly coming from Britain where Usyk is so revered, earning $40 million through sponsorships and another $30 million from ticket sales. Meanwhile, their December 21 rematch saw pay-per-view sales comfortably surpass 500,000 buys according to boxing insider Rick Glaser confirming it at that point as being worldwide sales had passed this threshold mark.
Usyk made an unexpected announcement after his second meeting with Fury. He claimed the fight had been significantly easier compared to their initial encounter, which ended in a close split decision victory for Usyk following an intense struggle. Even Fury’s more aggressive style proved less challenging according to Usyk; an assertion which was validated by former light-heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev who shares Egis Klimas as his manager; Kovalev relayed Klimas’ words when talking with Kovalev during training camp this time round due to Usyk being more confident compared with their first fight due to less physical strain taking place and stress reduction after such less exertions took place than before compared with before their initial showdown had taken.
Glaser provided insight into the success of the long-awaited rematch by offering his insights as to its PPV sales performance, though an exact number remains undisclosed and subject to speculation among boxing fans and analysts.