Despite it having looked like the first Heavyweight unification bout of the four-belt era would finally happen, Alexander Krassyk – Usyk’s promoter – now claims otherwise after his latest phoned conversation with Talk Sport where he claimed that the Fury-Usyk fight was canceled.
“The fight has been called off.” Alex Krassyk voiced grimly to Jim White from Talk Sport. “The reason for that is that it went too far. There was a feeling that after Usyk accepted 70-30, Tyson Fury started to think he could put a saddle around his (Usyk’s) neck and start riding Usyk as much as he can. It’s not right.”
The negotiations between Tyson Fury (33-0-1, 24 KO’s) and Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13 KO’s) have been dragged out since January of this year, and seemed virtually concluded when reports surfaced of Oleksandr Usyk accepting the 70-30 split between them with Fury accepted his own part of the contract. The fight was slated for April 29, but is now apparently in doubts again following the words of Usyk’s manager.
However, Fury’s manager, longtime boxing promoter Frank Warren, claims the complete opposite. In his own appearance on Talk Sport, Warren rejected Krassyk’s idea of the Heavyweight undisputed bout having been canceled,
“No, I’m not confirming it’s off.” Frank Warren responded to the suggestion that the undisputed fight was canceled.
“All I’ve had from him officially was an email yesterday. He said, ‘we’d like to officially announce that team Usyk is out of further negotiations regarding April 29th. You guys can put your pencils down to when we speak in the next future, best regards, Egis on behalf of Usyk’.” Warren explained.
Egis Klimas, Usyk’s manager, acted on behalf of Oleksandr Usyk to apparently cancel the negotiations between his team and Fury’s, but Warren seemed insistent that the fight was still on.
“We got that yesterday, that’s the first we’ve heard of it. On Sunday, we had a conference call with all the respective parties – including lawyers, Queensberry, K2, Egis, Alex Krassyk and Top Rank – to discuss the outstanding issues that they highlighted, which was mostly regarding tickets, travel, who walks first, second etc.” Warren said. “We got it all out of the way except for the rematch.“
The Queensberry Promotions founder explained that both parties were working on including or excluding the rematch clause, before sudden news arrived of Usyk’s team pulling out of the negotiations. He went on to disregard the importance of the rematch clause as he believed whoever won in the Fury-Usyk fight would be forced to fight his mandatories which would prevent a rematch from occurring timely.
Alex Krassyk also joined the conversation with Frank Warren to debate what had happened, and claimed that it was Oleksandr Usyk himself who refused to continue compromising with Fury, which according to Warren would pertain to the negotiations over the rematch clause.
Krassyk, however countered that the issue was not about the rematch clause.
“It was about the WBC belt.” Krassyk asserted.
With both sides claiming a different reason and a different status of the slated April 29th match, Warren and Krassyk both went head-to-head to lay down their issues with the talks. Alex Krassyk went on to thank Frank Warren and his team for their efforts in trying to make the undisputed fight while seemingly suggesting that the fault was on either Fury, Usyk or both.
“This is not their fault, that they have the type of clients such as Tyson Fury, and we have clients such as Oleksandr Usyk.” Alex Krassyk clarified. “We are here to supply the demands of our fighters, and Frank did everything possible to make it happen.
When asked on whether the fight would happen, Krassyk responded in the negative. “From our perspective, this fight is not going to happen on the 29th [of April].
“Maybe some miracle could happen but at this point, it is what it is. Like Egis said, the Usyk camp pulled the plug out.“
Krassyk’s words are even more of an indicator that both Heavyweight fighters have had a hand in the fight being canceled, with Fury becoming more demanding and Usyk having grown tired of needing to bend to his potential opponent’s whims, though clearly Usyk’s case seems a bit more relatable given what he had to accept for the fight to occur in the first place.
Krassyk also claimed that the rematch clause only became an issue when Tyson Fury made it so on his last Instagram video in which he ranted against Usyk.
“Usyk came up very clearly, ‘okay Tyson, I accept 70-30, but you have to accept the donation of one million pounds to the people of Ukraine. So that was his demand.” Krassyk continued on to explain.
“Tyson wanted to hear just the first part of it, and he didn’t want to hear the second. This is just a small thing. It has nothing to do with Queensberry or Frank. It’s a matter of how Tyson estimates himself.“
Frank Warren and Alex Krassyk both said negotiations would commence, with the former being strongly confident that the talks would be wrapped up within a couple of days.
While both managers are still at odds over their clients’ demands, the fight between Fury and Usyk has a large chance to continue on at April 29th, but will require both clients to tie the knot when it comes to what they want. Judging by the conversations of both fighters’ representatives, it is clear that Tyson Fury has been rather extraneous with his demands, which Krassyk had earlier pointed out as a sign of a fighter seeking to pull out.
Boxing fans will still have to wait a little while longer for the official announcement of the Heavyweight division’s undisputed bout as Fury and Usyk sort out their issues as the negotiations are set to continue.
