Saudi Arabia’s Turki Al-Sheikh has revealed the complete undercard lineup for Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk’s February seventeenth undisputed heavyweight title battle, which options two further championship bouts and quite a few noteworthy fighters.
The (different) featured attraction of the night sees former cruiserweight champions Jai Opetaia (24-0, 19 KO) and Mairis Briedis (28-2, 20 KO) as soon as once more sq. off for the now-vacant IBF title. Damage stored this rematch on ice for over a yr and it appeared destined for the scrapheap after the IBF stripped Opetaia and ordered Briedis to face “Zurdo” Ramirez for the title.
Information broke over the weekend that Ramirez would as an alternative problem Arsen Goulamirian for the WBA belt in March, so we’re again at sq. one. I’d nonetheless like to see Opetaia and Briedis run it again, so I’m not complaining.
Additionally on faucet are Joe Cordina’s (17-0, 9 KO) beforehand introduced tremendous featherweight title protection in opposition to Anthony Cacace (21-0, 7 KO) and the return of Sergey Kovalev (35-4-1, 29 KO), who makes his second look of the final 4 years in opposition to Robin Sirwan Safar (16-0, 12 KO). The poster lists the latter as a lightweight heavyweight bout, however Safar has by no means fought at 175 and Kovalev has claimed that he’s campaigning at 200 from now personal, so it’s virtually actually a cruiserweight tussle.
Isaac Lowe (24-2-3, 8 KO) additionally sees motion in opposition to Hasibullah Ahmadi (16-1, 5 KO), whereas TBA runs a giant boy gauntlet in opposition to Moses Itauma, Bakhodir Jalolov, and David Nyika. Itauma has a standing order to problem Solomon Dacres for the British title, but when they haven’t hashed that out by now, I’m not satisfied they’ll accomplish that with only a month till battle night time.
