Fury v Usyk to include ‘AI-powered’ fourth judge
The announcement was made by Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority
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Your support makes all the difference.The heavyweight rematch between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk this weekend will feature scoring from a fourth ‘judge’ powered by artificial intelligence.
Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority announced the implementation of the AI judge in a post on X, adding that it is an “experiment” which “won’t impact the official results”.
“For the first time ever, an AI-powered judge will monitor the fight”, said the post. “Free from bias and human error brought to you by The Ring. This groundbreaking experiment, which won’t impact the official results, debuts during the biggest fight of the century.”
The announcement is sure to split opinion in a sport that has long been affected by controversial judges’ decisions, with some fans on social media welcoming the decision.
The heavyweight bout is a rematch of the duo’s fight in May, which saw Usyk hand Fury the first defeat of his career via split decision. Fury rocked the Ukrainian with an uppercut in the sixth round, before an impressive comeback from Usyk almost stopped the ‘Gypsy King’ in the ninth. In the end, the judges scored the fight 115-112 to Usyk, 114-113 to Fury, and 114-113 to Usyk.
The rematch takes place on 21 December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight titles on the line, and Fury has promised to deliver a knockout to the current champion.
“I’ve always been a bad man my whole life, and I’m still one today at nearly 40 years old, a few years off 40,” he said.
“I’m going to go in there with destroy mode.
“Last time, I went to box him, I was being cautious.
“Anybody can get caught as we have seen in a lot of these heavyweight fights.
“But this time I’m not going for a points decision. I’m going in there to knock you out,” he said to Usyk.
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