Bob Arum and Frank Warren are awaiting a suggestion from buyers in Saudi Arabia who they consider need to convey the Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight title combat to that nation someday this spring.
If that provide both by no means comes or is deemed unacceptable, Arum has knowledgeable BoxingScene.com that their backup plan is to convey Fury-Usyk to Wembley Stadium in London. A document crowd of roughly 94,000 assembled for Fury’s sixth-round knockout of Dillian Whyte on April 23 at Wembley Stadium, however Usyk is keen to combat Fury there.
The unbeaten Ukrainian southpaw challenged Anthony Joshua for the British celebrity’s IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO belts in September 2021 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. Usyk upset Joshua by unanimous determination in that 12-round bout and edged him by cut up determination of their 12-round rematch, which occurred August 20 at Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“Everyone agreed that if [Saudi Arabia’s] provide comes by way of and it’s actual, that’s how we’ll go,” Arum, whose firm co-promotes Fury with Warren’s Queensberry Promotions. “If not, we’ll do the combat at Wembley.”
A bout between Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs), of Morecambe, England, and Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), of Simferopol, Ukraine, would decide boxing’s first totally unified champion of the four-belt period.
“The fighters have agreed to combat,” Arum mentioned. “I spoke to Frank Warren. We’re giving them till [this] week to come back with their provide, which I consider we’ll get. If we don’t, then we’re gonna do the combat at Wembley. After which we’d have to speak in regards to the percentages as a result of Usyk needs 50-50. That’s not proper if the combat’s at Wembley as a result of there can be 95,000 Brits on the combat and large Brit pay-per-view cash, so Tyson deserves the lion’s share.
“However we don’t get to that time if the [investors in Saudi Arabia] come by way of, as a result of the way in which they function is that they make offers with every of the fighters. We’ve been led to consider that they’re going to come back with a proposal [this] week. I’ll consider it once I see it, nevertheless it’s not like they haven’t come by way of up to now.”
Saudi buyers paid a lot to convey the Usyk-Joshua rematch to their nation final summer time. They facilitated that cope with Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn, whose firm promotes Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs).
His second defeat to Usyk got here in Joshua’s second combat on Saudi soil. The previous champion regained his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO belts by out-pointing Andy Ruiz Jr. of their rapid rematch, which came about in December 2019 at a makeshift venue in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.
Keith Idec is a senior author/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He could be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
