By Brian Webber: Promoter Alex Krassyuk says the negotiations with Tyson Fury didn’t go well for his fighter Oleksandr Usyk and he believes the fight is not going to happen on April 29th like they’d hoped it would.
Krassyuk revealed that with the money Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) is asking for, even if he agreed to a 90-10 split, it wouldn’t cover it. Indeed, even if Usyk took nothing, there wouldn’t be enough money to meet Fury’s demands for the fight, says Krassyuk.
In other words, greed has taken over and put Fury into a state where he can’t negotiate with any notable fighter. At this point, the only opposition Fury seems capable of putting fights together with is journeymen, like chubby pal 39-year-old Derek Chisora.
Given that Fury isn’t even in training camp and his high demands suggest to Krassyuk that he never wanted the fight with Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) from the beginning.
Krassyuk jokingly says with the money Fury is asking, he could be interested in purchasing a football team, but he is serious about him pricing himself out. He doesn’t believe Fury ever wanted the fight with Usyk from the get-go.
“The worst thing about all this is that he’s a big star only because of the fans. You have to pay off your fans. If you don’t, you’re going to sink into oblivion. It’s disrespectful to treat boxing fans like that,” said Alex Krassyuk to iDBoxing News about Tyson Fury.
Some would agree that Fury’s popularity is already beginning to wane in the last year when he foiled the negotiations with Anthony Joshua and chose to fight his buddy journeyman Derek Chisora, and the way that his negotiations with Usyk have dragged on for too long.
Fans blame Fury for the Usyk, and Joshua fights not being made, and they’re losing interest in him. We’ve seen fans lose interest in other famous fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr, Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin, Errol Spence Jr, and Terence Crawford.
These fighters make a lot of money, buy nice homes, cars, and jewelry and get trophy wives, and they stop giving fans the fights they want to see.
They become inactive and fat, sending their careers into a tailspin that they can’t pull out of. I think we see that with Fury. He’s sitting on an estimated $65 million, and his ambition is nowhere to be found.
“Most likely, he doesn’t want to fight Usyk. He could be having problems with his health or mental state,” said Krassyuk about Fury. “The fact is the negotiations didn’t go well. The negotiations did go well, but the results weren’t positive.
“That’s what we offered him as the last option,” said Krassyuk about the 60-40 deal that he offered Fury, with the winner getting 60 percent. “Not Usyk, but the ‘Middleweight rabbit.’ Just take the fight, 60-40 split, with the winner taking the bigger share.
“It’s not normal for boxing, but it’s a good incentive for fighters to do. No. I think even if you offered him 90 to 10, he would turn it down. Maybe he wants to buy a soccer club and that’s why he’s looking for money.
“It doesn’t look likely that we’ll have a fight on April 29th. I think they’re not in training camp, so they didn’t take the decision to fight,” said Krassyuk about him not seeing Fury in training camp, meaning that there’s no chance of a fight in April.
“According to their reports, Tyson was asking for too much money,” said Krassyuk about what he was told by George Warren. “Even if Usyk would get zero for the fight, it would not be sufficient for Tyson to cover his wants.
“Normally, when a fighter doesn’t want to fight, he asks for something impossible,” said Krassyuk.
