Not long to go now, we hope, until rival heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk get in the ring and slug it out with all four major world heavyweight titles on the line. Usyk’s promoter Alex Krassyuk has had one more dig at Fury, telling us all how we should “pray for Tyson and expect that the guy enters the ring.”
Speaking with Sky Sports Krassyuk referred to the way the big, four-belt unification showdown has been postponed before, more than once, with Krassyuk obviously critical of Fury for the delay – “I do hope he will wear his helmet, his protective gear this time and not injure his eyebrow or whatever he could injure,” Krassyuk said, referring to the cut Fury suffered in sparring, this seeing an end to the February date that was in place for the fight.
Krassyuk has also taken offence at the way Frank Warren recently called Usyk a “cry baby,” who doesn’t like it to the body. Krassyuk says there is zero doubt Daniel Dubois hit his guy low back in August of last year, and that “any man suffers when he is hit in the area below the naval.”
“Its the fight if a lifetime. Everyone is waiting for it,” Krassyuk said of Fury Vs. Usyk. “Let’s pray for Tyson and expect that the guy enters the ring. How can you call Usyk a cry baby? The man gained his title in Poland and has never defended it in his homeland. He has always gone to the backyard of his opponents and he has destroyed his opponents. Now he has been chasing Tyson Fury for several years and Fury has withdrawn four times in a row – including two dates within the last six months. No, he is not a cry baby. He is the big man in boxing and he is waiting patiently to step into the ring.”
The date is May 18, and there seems to be no way the fight doesn’t finally happen this time. Still, ask a few fight fans, and some of them will tell you they have an almost constant fear of reading or hearing how Fury has again pulled out for some reason. These fans have an ‘I’ll believe it when the two me are in the ring’ attitude. But again, it seems the fight HAS to happen now, and we are less than a month away.
Can Fury hurt Usyk to the body the way Warren and others feel he can? Will Usyk be too fast, too hard to hit, and too mobile for Fury? Usyk has a “secret weapon,” Krassyuk says, this being “his mind, his heart, his experience and boxing skills.”
This fight may well come down to who has the strongest mind and the superior ring IQ. So many fans and experts have this down as a genuine 50/50 fight. And it’s a fight we’ve all waited for long enough.
