Tyson Fury’s undisputed heavyweight championship fight against Oleksandr Usyk is now set to take place at the giant 95,000-seat Wembley Stadium in London due to the Saudi’s construction of the new stadium in Jeddah not being ready in time for the April 29th match.
Fury’s promoters have already booked Wembley Stadium for April 29th. It’s unclear if they knew from the start that they would take the Usyk fight to that venue.
Hopefully, the Saudis can find another stadium to stage the fight because Usyk has already negotiated his own deal with them to fight over there.
If he has to take a major pay cut to fight in England, he might not agree to the deal because he’s already going to be a huge underdog.
The deadline for the decision will be this week. It’s assumed that if Usyk doesn’t sign on the dotted line to fight, Fury will fight a replacement opponent on April 29th.
With that said, a popular will need to be substituted because there’s little chance that Fury can fight another journeymen-level opponent like the last time he fought against Derek Chisora and expect to sell out Wembley Stadium.
Boxing fans want to see Fury fight a quality opponent this time because he’s fought a couple of tomato cans in Chisora and Dillian Whyte in his last two contests in the UK.
Fury blew apart his chance to fight Anthony Joshua, and it would seem that he’s about to do the same thing with the Usyk fight.
It’s still unclear whether Usyk will agree to the deal, but if not, Team Fury will still fight on the April 29th date at Wembley but against another opponent. There’s already talk that Francis Ngannou will be the opponent for Fury, but given his popularity in the MMA world, the fans of that sport will help fill the Wembley Stadium in what will likely be an exhibition match.
For Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs), this is what he wanted to be able to fight in front of his home fans in England because he prefers to stage the fight there.
It’s not what IBF/WBA/WBO champion Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) wanted because he’s expected to get less money than what he would have made if the fight had taken place in Saudi Arabia.
Fury will make excellent money, though, because he can use the fact that he’s the main ticket-seller to get the better deal.
“Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are now set to face off at WEMBLEY as Saudi bidders are unable to confirm if construction of the Jeddah stadium can be completed for the undisputed heavyweight title fight on time,” said Jeff Powell to the Daily Mail.
“Tyson Fury’s fight for the undisputed world heavyweight championship is heading for Wembley Stadium on April 29.
“The Gypsy King’s preference for the venue has always been Wembley, for his British fans, even though richer mega-millions purses for both fighters are on offer in the Saudi Kingdom,
“D for Decision Day is said to be this week, and Wembley has already been booked by Fury’s Queensberry promoters.
“If an agreement with Usyk cannot be reached, Fury would be likely to fight there on April 29 against a designated challenger.”
If Fury isn’t going to fight Usyk on April 29th at Wembley Stadium, he’ll need one of these popular heavyweights to help him sellout the stadium:
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Deontay Wilder
- Jared Anderson
- Daniel Dubois
Fury can’t fight Joe Joyce because he’s already scheduled to fight Zhilei Zhang on April 15th. Tyson’s good buddy Joseph Parker has looked terrible in his last two fights against Joyce and Jack Massey, and he’s not popular enough as an opponent to sell out a venue as large as Wembley Stadium.