Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk being finalized for April 29th
Another day, another inch closer to a fully unified heavyweight division. After Tyson Fury called for a 70/30 split in Fury’s favor, Oleksandr Usyk has accepted those terms and the deal is set for the 29th of April at Wembley Stadium. The deal comes through at the last moment and we can finally get the top fight possible in boxing right now.
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Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk: The Undisputed King
The saga between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk has been on the cards for a while now. In the latest development, Fury called for Usyk to take the 70/30 split in purse and every day he doesn’t accept the terms, Usyk will lose one percent of his purse until he does accept. Fury went on, as seen in the Instagram post above, to say he has options and Daniel Dubois was one of his names he planned on fighting if Usyk didn’t come through.
Usyk came back and accepted shortly after saying that for every day Fury doesn’t accept the agreement, he has to donate one percent of his purse to the people of Ukraine.
This fight has been in the work for years and the players have changed. After Tyson Fury vacated all of his titles won from Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, boxing’s heavyweight division has been fractured.
Bermane Stiverne won the vacant WBC Heavyweight title against Ray Austin 2014. Stiverne was dethroned by Deontay Wilder in 2015. Wilder held on to his title for five years and lost his first fight against Fury 2020. Since then, Fury’s held the WBC title in his grasps.
The remainder of the three belts were held by various fighters after Klitschko lost to Fury in 2015. Fury was stripped of the IBF after he was forced to rematch Klitschko and Charles Martin won it in 2016 against Vyacheslav Glazkov. He was promptly knocked out three months later by Anthony Joshua. Joshua then took on Klitschko to get the IBO and WBA.
After being champ for a while, Anthony Joshua defended against Takam, Parker and Povetkin but never found time to fight Deontay Wilder. Joshua lost his titles against Andy Ruiz when he was knocked out in the seventh round but regained the titles in an immediate rematch.
Joshua took a chance and faced Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and lost a decision. Unlike the Ruiz fight, Usyk won the rematch via split decision.
Now the stage is set and it looks like we can unify the heavyweight division since the days of Klitschko and Fury’s rivalry. But, all is not done yet. We still have a ways to go.
