Fury’s clash with Usyk called off
Tyson Fury’s proposed undisputed heavyweight title fight with Oleksandr Usyk at Wembley has fallen through.
Talks between the two camps have taken place in recent months and an official announcement for an April 29 showdown had appeared close.
However, the unification bout in London is now off.
WBC champion Fury, from Manchester, called out Ukrainian Usyk – who holds the WBA, IBF and WBO belts – following his victory over Derek Chisora at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in December.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum revealed weeks later an agreement had been reached for a unification bout to take place.
Negotiations rumbled on, with plenty of backand-forth between the two heavyweights on social media, but on March 10 Usyk accepted a 70-30 purse split, provided Fury donated £1m to Ukraine to help their efforts in the war against Russia. The
WBA also revealed it had received confirmation that an agreement for the fight was in place, but it has now fallen through.
Egis Klimas, Usyk’s manager, questioned whether Fury wanted the fight, saying: “The Usyk side pulled out of further negotiations as the Fury side never had enough [and wanted] to pull everything and all rights to their side.
“I don’t want to go into details as all negotiations were confidential but I will tell you one thing, when a fighter doesn’t want to fight he overprices himself knowing that the fight won’t happen.
“They most likely forgot that Usyk is holding the majority of belts in the heavyweight division and Tyson just has one.”
Usyk, who beat Anthony Joshua in August, will now turn his attention to a mandatory defence of one of his belts later this summer, with Britain’s Daniel Dubois set to be next in line, although former WBC champion Deontay Wilder is also keen to face Usyk.