Right now, all fight fans, all boxing experts, and plenty of other people in-between, are asking one question – will the already twice-postponed heavyweight unification showdown between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk actually happen on its new date of May 18th? So many people seem to doubt it will, and with good reason. If a fight can be postponed two times, why not a third?
Also, as numerous fans have posted on the various forums, there is a real sense of the Uysk-Fury fight being “cursed,” as in cursed to never happen. We’ve seen it before, but under different circumstances, with the massive, too big and too lucrative for it not to happen Lennox Lewis-Riddick Bowe fight ultimately failing to go down. And who can really blame so many people for feeling it will be the same with this heavyweight blockbuster?
Fury as we know, bailed on the December date, this after he was lucky not to have had his ass handed to him by pro boxing debutant Francois Ngannou in their October battle. And then Fury suffered a “freak cut” in sparring, this seeing the February 17th date come crashing down.
And Usyk and his team are taking no chances regarding the May 18 date.
You may have read how Turki Alalshikh has put in pace a clause that will see either Fury or Usyk, if they pull out of the new date of May 18, have to pay a whopping, great fee of $10 million (and let’s not even go there as far as what would happen if either guy suffered a genuine and 100 percent legit injury prior to May 18, such as a broken hand, and was rendered unable to fight!)
But according to Usyk’s guy Egis Klimas, it was their idea, their demand, that this clause was put into place; with both unbeaten heavyweights agreeing to it.
“It was our request when negotiating,” Klimas said of the enormous $10 million penalty. “We said to the Saudis, if you are going to move the fight, make sure you include the penalty.”
And Alalshikh apparently agreed to the terms.
So, to again ask the question that is on everybody’s lips – will the third date prove productive, or will the gargantuan fee of $10 mil have to be forked out due to one of the two fighters pulling out?
We could easily make a poll, and it’s likely the final numbers of a ‘will it or won’t the fight happen?’ poll would come out at pretty close to 50-50. But we fans, and hopefully both fighters, really do have a massive desire and a need to see this fight finally happen.
A third pull-out, for whatever reason, would surely kill the fight for good. And surely nobody wants to see that happen.
