The May 18th Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk full undercard has now been officially announced, and fans on social media are not impressed. Fury-Usyk is the fight fans want to see, so they’re willing to put up with a lackluster main event like this one.
Will Fury Show Up?
It’s still too early to know whether the Fury-Usyk fight will happen on May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fury could come down with another fight, postponing injury like the one that wiped out the February 18th date.
The fight is now like flat soda, given how long it’s been delayed. Fans are no longer eager to see it as they initially were due to the 35-year-old Fury winding down like an old clock.
Saudi chief Turki Alalshikh hasn’t said his plans if Fury gets injured again. We know there’s a $10 million penalty, but the real question is whether he will give up staging the heavyweight clash in Saudi Arabia if Fury suffers another injury.
If you’re Alalshikh, there’s got to be a breaking point where you say, ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough of Fury. Let him be somebody else’s problem.’
If the Saudis give up on the Fury-Usyk fight due to Fury’s reoccurring injuries, the promoters will need to move this jinxed fight to a different country, like the UK, and hope for the best.
As for the undercard, it’s a mixed bag of two decent fights and the rest throwaways.
The Undercard: Seriously? That’s It?
Jai Opetaia vs. Mairis Briedis II
Joe Cordina vs. Anthony Cacace
Agit Kabayel vs. Frank Sanchez
Sergey Kovalev vs. Robin Sirwan
Mark Chamberlain vs. Joshua Oluwaseun
Isaac Lowe vs. Hasibullah Ahmadi
Moses Itauma vs. Ilja Mazencev
David Nyika vs. Michael Seitz
As far as this writer can tell, the only two decent fights on the card are the Opetaia-Briedis and Sanchez-Kayael clashes.
The rest of the card is empty stuff that the average boxing fan would have zero interest in seeing. With the Saudis’ money, they could eliminate most of the May 18th undercard, start from scratch, or go with a skeleton crew of support fights.