“He seems to be struggling to take it” - Oleksandr Usyk takes body shots to prepare for Tyson Fury’s attacks in the ring, fans react

Last week saw the frustrating announcement that the undisputed heavyweight title bout between WBC champ Tyson Fury and WBA, WBO, and IBF titleholder Oleksandr Usyk had been postponed.

Thankfully, though, with the reason for the postponement being a nasty cut suffered by Fury in training, the bout has already been rescheduled to the new date of May 18.

Judging by a recent video posted to his social media channels, it looks like Usyk remains in training for the fight.

The clip shows ‘The Cat’ taking a series of unprotected body shots from a sparring partner, ostensibly in preparation for the kind of shots he might face from ‘The Gypsy King’.

However, the video – which was reposted to X by journalist Michael Benson – has not gone down too well with certain fans.

User @mralexthfc seemed to doubt that the punches would replicate Fury’s power.

Other fans commented:

“Even with less power, he seems to be struggling to take it”

“Yea definitely a weakness”

“Maybe he is already sore from multiple rounds before this one. I mean his body vulnerability is know (sic) from 10 years and nothing new. Artur dropped him with body shot”

“He knows he’s got a glass body”

“Struggling even with them hahaha wait till fury lets his hands go, usyk will be faking low blows like there’s no tomorrow”

“Nothing on fury, gonna be a quick night”

“Struggling against a featherweight, Fury will end him"

“I think Fury is gonna hit him a bit harder than that”

“Dunno why they’ve released that video looks like he’s struggling already”

However, there was one outlier who stated that Usyk was simply playing mind games by releasing the video.

“This is just mind games but Usyk knows exactly what he’s doing”

View a collage of comments discussing Oleksandr Usyk’s recent sparring video below.

Fans discuss Oleksandr Usyk's sparring video

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Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury: Could ‘The Gypsy King’ head into retirement after the fight?

Oleksandr Usyk’s long-awaited unification fight with fellow heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has now been rescheduled for May 18 following its recent postponement.

However, with ‘The Gypsy King’ set to turn 36 years old later this year, could his bout with ‘The Cat’ be his final one?

According to Fury, who is currently healing up from the cut that caused the recent postponement, apparently not.

‘The Gypsy King’ recently took to social media to deny any suggestions that he might consider hanging up his gloves, instead stating that he had five little fights left in him.

He suggested these fights would be two bouts with Usyk, two with Anthony Joshua, and a rematch with Francis Ngannou.