By Dan Ambrose: UFC president Dana White chimed in, giving his view of the glacially slow negotiations between WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and IBF/WBA/WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk, pointing out that it’s NOT “shocking” what he’s seeing.
White says that, unfortunately, the big fights that should be made in boxing don’t, and when they do, it’s “too late” with the fighters being older, or things have changed with their careers.
With his company, the UFC, White can match the best against the best at the right time when fans are interested, and you don’t see the ducking and avoiding as you have in boxing.
White being able to match the best fighters in the UFC against each other whenever he wants it’s helped the sport and his company skyrocket.
The downside is that the top guys don’t last long like in boxing because it’s impossible to stay on top when they’re being matched continually against the best.
“Welcome to boxing, boys. Is it shocking? Yes. Is it shocking? No. That is boxing; it’s just the way that the sport always seems to play out,” said Dana White per Joe on Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk negotiations slowly imploding.
“The big fights that should happen never happen, and when they do, it is always late. That is the stuff that used to drive me crazy as a fan, and it is literally a part of how I designed this company to not be,” White said about his company, the UFC.
The WBA is seemingly trying to help out the impasse with the Fury-Usyk fight, giving them a deadline of April 1st to have their contracts signed, or else they’ll order Usyk to defend against his WBA mandatory Daniel Dubois.
It’s not looking good that the Fury vs. Usyk fight will get signed. A lot of the blame has been put on the shoulders of the 34-year-old WBC heavyweight champion Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs), as he’s been playing the A-side 800-lb gorilla from day one, failing to make a deal with the Saudis after pricing himself out, and then giving Usyk a 70-30, “take it or leave it” split offer.
Then afterward, taunting Usyk’s promoter for accepting the deal, as if he were hoping that would anger him and Oleksandr enough for them to pull out of the fight.
A perfect example of fights in boxing that were made too late was the recent trilogy match between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin.
Fans had been waiting for four years for that fight to take place after the massive, well-received second Canelo-Golovkin fight in 2018.
Instead of the third clash taking place in 2019 to take advantage of the red-hot interest, the trilogy contest didn’t happen until 2022.
By that time, Golovkin was 40 years old, nowhere to the fighter he’d been four years previous, and much of his popularity had diminished because he’s seemingly kept his career in a holding pattern, waiting for the lucrative third fight against Canelo.
Additionally, the fan interest was no longer there for the fight. Canelo was recently dominated by Dmitry Bivol, and people wanted to see a rematch or a match against David Benavidez.
Frank Warren has big news coming
Arsenal 8 points clear!
Even bigger news to come! 👀
— Frank Warren (@FrankWarren) March 19, 2023
