Tim Bradley says WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has become a “diva” only concerned with making money and that he “ducked” the fight against IBF, WBA & WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk that they’d been trying to negotiate for April 29th.
The fight fell apart over the rematch split that Fury wanted of 50-50, and this after getting Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) had agreed to a 70-30 for the first fight.
The winner of the April 29th fight, whether it be Usyk or Fury, would be entitled to the 70-30 split for the rematch. Interestingly, despite Fury giving Usyk no chance of beating him, he wouldn’t agree to the rematch deal, which would have seen him get the same 70-30 split as he was getting in the first fight if he won.
Bradley feels that now that Fury has ducked the Usyk fight, he’ll likely face Joe Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs), but that’s difficult to believe that would be hard work for the 6’9″ Gypsy King.
Joyce has the size to deal with the 100% mauling style that Fury now uses since teaming up with Kronk gym-trained SugarHill Steward.
If Fury thinks he will beat Joyce by leaning on him, as he did in his wins over Derek Chisora, Dillian Whyte and Deontay Wilder, he could be barking up the wrong tree. Joyce weighs about the same as Fury, but it’s all muscle and not fat.
At this point in Fury’s career, one gets the sense that he’s only interested in easy money fights, and one wants to make huge boatload of dough against Anthony Joshua in a cash-out before retiring.
Like Usyk, Joyce would be a risky fight for Fury, ruining the money he’d get fighting Joshua if he lost. That’s why it’s just as unlikely that Fury will fight Joyce as it was Usyk because if he gets beaten, he can forget about fighting Joshua in Saudi Arabia to potentially double his net worth, which is currently estimated at $65 million.
“This Fury issue. He’s become a diva in my eyes, a huge diva. Fury understands now that he can sell out arenas, and it doesn’t matter who he fights,” said Tim Bradley to ESPN.
“I asked him in the past, ‘What about legacy?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t care about legacy. I care about that money. Forget the legacy.’ I feel like he doesn’t really want the Usyk fight at all.
“He will get in there with Joe Joyce or whoever it is, and he can control everything, and he can pay them a little amount of money and go from there.
“A small piece of me feels like Fury doesn’t want to fight Usyk because it’s almost like remnants when he fought against [then 39-year-old Wladimir] Klitschko [in 2015], and he won the heavyweight championships, won all the belts and then went on that downslope.
“There was nothing else for him. There’s no doubt about it,” said Bradley about Fury having ducked Usyk. “He ducked him.
“Fury is the one to blame. I’m sick of the mess. I call this a legitimate duck by Fury, he’s ducking Usyk. He didn’t think Usyk was going to take 70/30. The goalposts got moved again, they kept getting moved,” said Bradley.
