By Craig Daly: Tyson Fury is beginning to lose patience with the slow progress of his negotiations for an undisputed heavyweight match against IBF, WBA & WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk on April 29th.
Despite Fury’s promoter Frank Warren saying the fight is definitely happening in April, the contest still hasn’t been confirmed between him and the unified three-belt champion Usyk.
With today being February 10th, it’s unclear how much longer Team Fury can afford to wait before scrapping the idea of making this fight and moving on so that they can salvage the first half of this year to get a fight in.
Should Fury move on?
Fury & Usyk’s promoters will still need time to market the fight, and they’re not going to have enough time to do a proper job of it if the negotiations drag into March or, shudder the thought, April before it’s finally signed, sealed & delivered.
“The talks for the fight with Usyk are still going. All talk and no deliverance,” said Tyson Fury to Beyond Radio. “I don’t know anything about it right now. We shall see. But as of today, I’ve not even had an offer from anybody to do a fight.”
Cutting his losses in another direction is an option for Fury that he and his promotional team are going to have to have to consider at some point because the time that’s going into making the fight with Usyk is too much for it to be worth it.
If Fury does move on, he’s got a lot of excellent options available to him, beginning with a massive contest against WBO interim champion Joe Joyce.
That fight would resonate with British boxing fans and set the winner up to face Anthony Joshua in the second half of this year, as long as he wins his April 1st bout against Jermaine Franklin.
There’s likely more money and interest for Fury to fight Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs) than facing Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) for the undisputed championship.
Only the ultra-hardcore boxing fans even care about the undisputed angle because it’s beyond the radar of casual fans. After all, they’ll be oblivious to how many belts would be on the line in a fight between Fury and Usyk.
“I’ve been undefeated for 14 years. I can beat any man; there’s no doubt about that. They can’t defeat me in a boxing ring, for sure,” said Fury in changing the subject to build himself up.