By Brian Webber: Bob Arum believes that putting together the undisputed heavyweight championship fight between his guy, WBC champion Tyson Fury & IBF, WBA & WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk won’t be difficult, and he thinks it could happen as early as December.
Of course, Arum’s comment about the Fury-Usyk fight potentially happening soon could be interpreted as a slick promotional move to create more interest in the October 28th circus event between Fury taking on former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou on TNT Sports PPV & ESPN+ pay-per-view from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
By Arum floating the possibility of a Fury vs. Usyk fight taking place potentially in October or early next year, it will create more fans’ interest in Tyson’s match against 37-year-old non-boxer Ngannou on October 28th to help pump up the PPV sales for this godawful trainwreck.
“It won’t be hard to make. I think he [Oleksandr Usyk] wants that fight. I think that fight’s going to happen, and hopefully, it will happen sooner rather than later,” said Bob Arum to Sky Sports about the Tyson Fury vs. Usyk undisputed heavyweight championship.
“[Fury-Usyk fight will] Probably be early next year, but it could happen as early as December,” Arum continued.
As it is now, boxing fans view Fury-Ngannou as a cheap money grab and an awful mismatch to exploit the gullible people to open up their pocketbooks to order it on pay-per-view. Fury vs. Ngannou is an utter abomination and so wrong on many levels. It’s like taking NFL quarterback Tom Brady and setting up a fight with Fury to take advantage of Brady’s football fans to purchase the joke.
Fury’s fight with Ngannou shows how boxing promoters are stooping to the level of celebrity matches, following pathetic Youtuber model to peddle garbage to casual fans, turning the sport into a joke. With no way of controlling this garbage, it will likely continue. There’s no league official in boxing to prevent trash like this from happening.
Fury clearly isn’t going to fight Usyk because, for all intents and purposes, he’s retired from facing quality opposition from the boxing world. At this point, Fury’s only interest is making easy coin, using his status as the WBC champion as a tool to help market his events against non-boxers from the MMA world and washed-up journeyman-level fighters.
“I would like to see him [Fury] fight Usyk. I think once he fights Usyk, and assuming he beats Usyk, then I think he’ll do a victory lap, maybe two more fights, and let the younger guys take over,” Arum said without naming who the “younger guys” are that he’s referring to.
Obviously, Arum is hoping that Jared Anderson can grab the reins from Fury when he gives up his WBC belt, and be his next champion.