By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn says Tyson Fury knew what he was up against fighting Oleksandr Usyk, he knew how difficult the match would have been for him, so he chose not to give in during the negotiation to battle for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
Hearn feels that Fury understood how bad of a style match-up the fleet of foot, highly accurate puncher Usyk would have been for the slow of foot. With Usyk’s sniper-like shots, Fury would have been easy prey for him, and he also understood that.
Fury stubbornly failed to bend on the rematch clause split, which is something that could have been easily negotiated if he fancied the job against IBF, WBA & WBO champion Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), but instead, he chose to be unyielding, treating the three-belt champion like he was a mandatory challenger rather than a unified champ.
As one would expect, the fans have been given Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) all kinds of grief over this because this wasn’t the first massive fight in that he messed up with his hamhanded negotiation tactics.
Fury wrecked the Anthony Joshua talks last December, leaving him with no option but to fight 39-year-old played-out journeyman Derek Chisora.
“Ultimately, if Tyson Fury wanted to become undisputed, and if he really truly believed it was an easy fight, like he said, then he would have accepted that fight, no doubt,” said Eddie Hearn to Ariel Helwani’s site about Tyson Fury losing his nerve, choosing not to fight Oleksandr Usyk.
“But he knows how good Oleksandr Usyk is, and he was only prepared to do it on his terms.”
At this point in Fury’s career, you must wonder if he’ll retire because he seems to have lost his nerve to fight the best after his trilogy match against Deontay Wilder.
Some would argue that the punishment that Wildeer administered in that fight has done a number on Fury, causing him to want to avoid any potential bouts where he could get knocked, hurt, or beaten.
It’s also possible that Fury’s wins over Wilder have given him the feeling that he’s the king of kings and that anyone that wishes to fight him must accept the table scraps that he tosses on the floor for them to eat.
In that respect, Fury has delusions of grandeur and will never get thee important legacy fights against Usyk, Anthony Joshua, or Joe Joyce.