By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn says the contracts are being finalized between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk for a fight on September 25th at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London or Wembley Stadium. This is a dangerous fight for Joshua, as Usyk has got the ring IQ and mobility to win.
The announcement for the Joshua vs. Usyk fight could come as early as this weekend. If not then, it’ll take place in early next week, says Hearn.
Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) is Joshua’s WBO mandatory after moving up in weight from cruiserweight in 2019.
The 2012 Olympic gold medalist and former undisputed cruiserweight champion Usyk is being given the opportunity to fight Joshua after his originally scheduled opponent Tyson Fury lost his arbitration case with Deontay Wilder.
Fury messed things up
Joshua and Fury would have met on August 14th in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the undisputed heavyweight championship with both guys getting beaten $60-80 million.
Fury’s mistake is Usyk’s good luck because he’s now taken his position to face Joshua next, albeit for much less money. Usyk isn’t going to get the big bank Fury would have goten.
Showing his inexperience in these matters, Fury blew it by thinking he could slide out of his contractual rematch with Wilder. Fury can blame it on his promoters for him choosing to try and walk away from the contractual rematch with Wilder.
But ultimately, it was Fury’s decision to agree to try and skip out on the Wilder fight, and boy did it cost him. Now, Fury has to fight Wilder in a risky match, and he’s lost out on the $60-80 million payday he would have received or the Joshua fight. It was dumb, dumb, and dumb.
Why hasn’t Joshua written Fury off for good?
It’s frankly surprising that Joshua and Hearn haven’t written Fury off completely after the time he wasted for them both.
You hate to say it, but it might be better in the long run if Deontay Wilder defeats Fury in their trilogy match next month on July 24th.
For his part, Usyk won a controversial decision over Russia’s Artur Beterbiev in winning his gold medal in the heavyweight class in the 2012 Olympics.
Hearn: Joshua wants to go through Usyk
“Give this man credit for his résumé,” said Hearn to iFL TV about Joshua. “Look at the P4P list – Usyk’s in there, where’s AJ? If and when he beats Usyk, stick him in the P4P list
“He looks at Usyk and says, ‘That’s a P4P great fighter, I’m gonna go through him.'”
Usyk looked awful against Dereck Chisora last October in squeaking by with a 12 round split decision victory. For his part, Joshua is coming off a ninth-round knockout win over old-timer 39-year-old Kubrat Pulev last December.
Joshua vs. Usyk is interesting in some ways as far it putting two 2012 Olympic gold medalists against each other. Both of them won controversial gold medals, unfortunately.
Joshua was arguably beaten twice in the Olympics in the super heavyweight class by Erislandy Savon from Cuba and Italy’s Robert Cammarelle. Charles Brun also had Joshua losing to Ivan Dychko of Kazakhstan.
