IBF, WBA & WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has given into Tyson Fury’s 70-30 that he wanted, and the WBA has been informed that the two have agreed to terms for their April 29th fight at the Wembley Stadium in London.
Mike Coppinger of ESPN reported the news of the Usyk & Fury’s teams having notified the WBA that they’ve agreed to a deal for their April 29th fight.
Fury & Usyk had to agree to a deal by the close of the business day today to meet the 5:00 p.m. deadline that the World Boxing Association had set.
If they hadn’t made an agreement, Usyk would have been forced to defend against his WBA mandatory Daniel Dubois next, which would have been a risky fight, and who knows whether he’d win or not.
Although Usyk agreed to Fury’s 70/30 request for the split, he had a condition of his own, saying that he must donate one million pounds to the Ukrainian people after the fight. It would appear that Fury has agreed to this request.
It’s lucky for Fury that Usyk agreed to the 30% split that he offered because if this fight hadn’t happened, it would be the second big one in a row that the Gyspy King had drawn a blank on, and his fans are jumping ship, losing interest in him.
Fury’s fans want to see him fight the best, and they’ve lost patience for him after watching him wipe out Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora.
Those guys were well below the type of opposition that Fury’s fans wanted to see him fighting at this point, and they don’t want to pay top dollar to see him massacre mediocre opposition like Chisora and Whyte.
Fury obviously had no choice in the matter of defending against Whyte, but he’s the one that hand-picked the 39-year-old Chisora after he ruined the Joshua negotiations by setting deadlines.
The 6’9″, 270+ lb Fury will have a monstrous size advantage over the 6’3″, 220 lb Usyk, and unless Oleksandr can find a way to deal with this, he’s likely to wind up losing. Two things that Usyk has going for him is his mobility & his ring IQ.
Unlike the last three opponents Fury has had in Derek Chisora, Dillian Whyte, and Deontay Wilder, Usyk won’t stand directly in front of him, standing like a statue, easy prey to be held & leaned on with all his weight.
