Usyk vs. Fury 2: The wild, wacky history of heavyweight rematches in combat sports

When MMA was picking up steam in the late 2000s, there was a raging conversation among enthusiasts as to why the lighter divisions didn’t translate more broadly to the public at large the way heavyweights do. The simple answer is that a heavyweight looks like they can kick anybody in the world’s ass, and that’s because they probably can. If Rocky were a bantamweight from Queens, the franchise would’ve flopped, and poor Adrian might’ve never gotten out of the pet store.

There is something about being physically imposing above the mean that speaks to our sense of awe, because it channels an extreme conflict only resolvable through sheer brutality. And when a big-time heavyweight fight between industry giants gets a sequel, that’s when it becomes more personal. That’s when the psychological interplay between the fighters becomes a vicarious experience for the onlooker. The tension tautens. And the little evolutions — like we are seeing with Tyson Fury ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk — become these little tells as to what goes on inside the fighter's mind.

Usyk beat Fury back in May, and it’s the first time in 16 years as a pro that Fury has had to deal with a loss. Now he returns, after three months of relative seclusion in which he didn’t speak to his own wife, communicating at times in grunts through a beard that looks fashioned out of Brillo. Only a rival like Usyk, who himself has a lunatic work ethic and a degree of in-ring menace that can’t help but endear, can drag that side out of him.

A single fight is a crossroads. But two? That’s when destinies become linked. Within that intense 11-minute faceoff that Fury and Usyk had on Thursday, full biographies were being written.

Which got us to thinking about a couple of the sequels in MMA and boxing over the years that stretched a rivalry into something for the ages to remember.

Floyd Patterson vs. Ingemar Johansson II – June 26, 1959, New York

This might have been when the term “Shocked the World” was invented. Sports Illustrated ran a cover of the 5-to-1 favorite Patterson falling to the canvas as Sweden’s own Johansson is framed against a burst of ring light with his right hand coming back from its destruction in the heart of Yankees Stadium.

The words on that cover: “The Right That Shocked The Sports World.”

It remains the gold standard for upsets in combat sports. When Jon Jones was facing off with the Swede Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165, there were mentions of Johannson’s titanic upset of Patterson, because a rivalry was generated through the power of one well-timed right hand. Patterson got his rematch a year later at the Polo Grounds down the road, yet there was doubt throughout Coogan’s Bluff because, everyone wanted to know: was the first fight a fluke? It was hard to say, given how accurate and deadly Johansson had been with his jab before the knockout.

But "The Gentleman of Boxing" evened the score in the second fight, and then put the rivalry to bed by knocking out Johansson in the sixth round of the third bout in Miami. Sometimes the sequel is all about proving the first fight was an aberration, nothing more than an off night at the office. That’s what Fury is trying to do on Saturday in Riyadh.

Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez II – UFC 155, December 29, 2012, Las Vegas

Throwing this one in for the MMA heads, as it was a mega-big deal at the end of 2012. For its first ever live broadcast on Fox, the UFC put on a single fight spotlight event between the champion Velasquez and the surging challenger dos Santos, a kind of spiritual offering to the television overlords for finally giving the UFC mainstream access.

That first encounter, which took place in November 2011, ended up being anticlimactic, as dos Santos knocked out Velasquez in just 64 seconds. It was a mammoth moment for the UFC nonetheless, and if nothing else it set up a rematch for down the road. Especially as news trickled out that Velasquez was fighting on a compromised knee, which obviously affected his performance.

They rolled it back 13 months later. Velasquez had already bulldozed Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in his warm-up fight at UFC 146, the same night that dos Santos put a beating on Frank Mir to defend the title. Now the two best heavyweights in the world would collide again, and the sentiment throughout fight week was that "JDS" might be in for a comeuppance.

Turns out that was an understatement. Velasquez punished dos Santos for 25 straight minutes, the kind of raw, uncensored NC-17 beatdown that might’ve had executive eyebrows hiking to the hairline had this been the fight that played out on Fox a year earlier. Instead, it was the pay-per-view audience that saw "JDS" get bludgeoned in such inhumane ways that the only thing left to do was to marvel at the thresholds of his heart.

And his chin.

That set up the rubber match for UFC 166 some 10 months later, which had the same brutal tone and feel of the second fight, yet this time Velasquez put dos Santos away in the fifth round. Mercy.

Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier II — January 28, 1974, New York City

Of the Ali-Frazier trilogy, the second fight is the bastard child that virtually nobody talks about. That was because it was bookended by the “Fight of the Century” in 1971 (perhaps the most coveted ticket in boxing’s history) and the epic third encounter, the “Thrilla in Manila,” in 1975 (one of the single greatest fights on record).

What was the sequel? It was a letdown, especially after the heated studio brawl a few days earlier at the ABC studios had generated a king of earthshaking expectation. The two clinched 133 times, which meant referee Tony Perez spent the entire night prying them apart like a heavyweight oyster shucker. Ali was grabbing and pulling at Frazier’s head for much of it, frustrating the Madison Square Garden faithful and Smokin’ Joe alike. It was 15 rounds of strategic nullification.

Yet in the end, it was a vital piece to what became what many consider the greatest rivalry in all of sports. The judges saw it for Ali, which evened the series, setting up the third fight a year later in the Philippines. Had the scorecards gone in Frazier’s favor? Now, there’s a rabbit hole in which full volumes of literature could be written.

Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar II – UFC 100, July 11, 2009, Las Vegas

God, these were the good old days, right when the UFC was breaking its taboo label and taking on more and more sponsors. The pro wrestler Brock Lesnar was a kind of golden goose for the UFC, one of the original draws that compelled people who had no interest in cage-fighting to peek between the links. Why? Because his thorax measured something like 1,000 inches from nipple to nipple, and when he flexed his pecs the tattooed sword on his chest danced like a cobra.

UFC president Dana White was so cautiously optimistic about UFC 100 that he swore he’d bungee jump off the top of the Mandalay Bay if it broke a million pay-per-views. And guess what? It did (though he did not).

This was a revenge fight for Lesnar, who’d debuted against the veteran Frank Mir at UFC 81. In the first fight, Lesnar treated Mir a little like a linebacker does a tackling dummy, but Mir was able to secure a rare kneebar submission just 90 seconds in against the unexperienced Lesnar. Lesnar, of course, was outraged. And he carried that outrage with him to Vegas for the rematch. This time Lesnar treated Mir like a bull does a rodeo clown, tossing him here and there and leaving parts strewn all over. When he ended the onslaught via knockout in the second round, he frothed at the mouth for the cameras.

Like he was rabid. There would be no Part III.

Evander Holyfield vs. Riddick Bowe II – November 6, 1993, Las Vegas

Coming off what was widely considered one of the greatest fights of all time in their first match, in which Bowe took a decision over Holyfield, the rematch had all the makings of a classic. There was major Big Fight tension in the desert air as this one drew closer. Holyfield had joined forces with Kronk’s Emanuel Steward, and Bowe had demonstrably thrown his WBC title in the trash as a show of control after refusing to fight Lennox Lewis.

The 1990s of heavyweight boxing was a golden era that glinted just as spectacularly as that of the 1970s. There were so many Olympic backstories and bad blood dealings and previous sparring encounters and miraculously revived relics (George Foreman) that every title fight felt huge. Yet Bowe-Holyfield II took the cake.

Today it is remembered for the Fan Man, James Miller, crashing into the ring in the seventh round on his propelled paraglider, in one of the most surreal moments in boxing history. Chaos ensued for the next 20-plus minutes, while the fighters themselves did their best to stay focused. The incident occurred almost directly in the middle of the trilogy itself, a little over midway through the second fight, and from that point on everything fell in Holyfield’s favor. He won the round in question and a close decision in the end to set up the third fight, which Bowe won via knockout in the eighth round.

It was only the third time in history that a heavyweight champion was able to reclaim the title from the man who took it from him (Ali’s colossal 1978 revenge fight against Leon Spinks was the second, and Patterson’s restoration of order in 1959 against Johansson was the other. Can Fury be the fourth?)

Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier II — UFC 241, August 17, 2019, Anaheim, Calif.

This was one of those rivalries that blossomed, if not out of left field, then certainly left-center. For the longest time, Cormier didn’t want to move up to heavyweight because his longtime friend and training partner at American Kickboxing Academy, Cain Velasquez, ruled the division. So when "DC" finally made the move at UFC 226 to face off with Stipe Miocic in an attempt to become a two-division champion, it was like a force field had been removed. He was in his natural habitat with all the meanest slabs.

Cormier trounced Miocic and won the title, ending what was a historic championship run for Miocic. He cut promos that night in Anaheim with Brock Lesnar, hoping to secure box-office spectacular, but that fight never materialized. In the end it was Miocic who make his way back to challenge him. That occurred in 2019, after Cormier had already celebrated his 40th birthday. It would either be "DC" putting Miocic forever in his rear-view mirror, or — if he lost — it would be an extended series.

In what was the hinge event of their rivalry, Miocic knocked Cormier out in the fourth round to take back his belt. Fate swung back in the fireman’s favor, and we all saw what happened next. The exclamation mark in the trilogy, in which Miocic won a unanimous decision to retire one of the UFC’s greats.

Sometimes that second fight leads to the ledge. Will we see similar on Saturday?

(Honorable mentions to this incomprehensible list: Ali-Spinks, Ali-Norton, Fury-Wilder.)