Tyson Fury’s co-promoter Frank Warren remains hopeful the Fury-Oleksandr Usyk fight can and will still happen. News came earlier today, telling us how the fight, scheduled for April 29 in London, had “collapsed” and that Usyk had “shut down” his training camp and had moved on, this due to how no deal could be reached with regards to “material terms critical to the deal beyond the [purse] split.”
Fans, weary of this whole saga, have had enough, and yet another article on the subject will not please these folks.
Deontay Wilder wants in 💣 pic.twitter.com/iJVWP5yRcc
— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) March 22, 2023
However, Warren is hoping the fight will not fall apart. The issue that is holding up the fight now is the rematch clause. As per Mike Coppinger, Usyk, who we know agreed (some say quite astonishingly) to a 70-30 purse split in favour of Fury, has called for a 70-30 split in his favour in the rematch should he defeat Fury in the first fight. Fury has called for a 50-50 purse split in the rematch should he lose fight-one. If Fury wins the first fight, Fury wants another 70-30 split in his favour in the rematch.
This does seem greedy on the part of Fury, and maybe Team-Usyk will refuse to budge on this issue and maybe this will prevent the fight from happening. All we can do at this point is wait and see what happens. But fans are far from optimistic.
Why these two fighters could not simply agree to a 50-50 split of EVERYHING is beyond some of us. Remember, the word right at the start of talks for the Fury-Usyk fight was that the two fighters would share 50-percent of the purse, this is what Bob Arum told us, adding how the fight would be pretty easy and straightforward to make. As we know, this has been far from the case.
And now, adding to the developing story, former WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder has offered to step in and fight Usyk if the Fury fight does collapse.
“If the Oleksandr Usyk fight is available, Deontay Wilder will take it in a heartbeat,” Shelly Finkel, Wilder’s manager, told Sky Sports today. Wilder is now a promotional free agent, and the 37 year old is looking at his next fight. However, if Usyk doesn’t fight Fury, chances are he will go down the mandatory defence route, and this would mean a WBA title defence against Daniel Dubois.
Bottom line: if Fury-Usyk doesn’t happen, the heavyweight division will descend into chaos. And we fans will be a whole lot of disappointed people.
