If an undisputed fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk is made, the British champion will enter supremely confident.
As the holder of the WBC title, Fury is just one fight away from becoming the first sole heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis. The man who can spoil the party is Usyk, who took and retained the WBA, IBF and IBO belts from Anthony Joshua recently.
Whilst many fans believe Usyk to be a generationally great fighter, others reckon Fury’s size and strength will prove too much for the former cruiserweight champion.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Fury agreed with this thinking and vowed to ‘crush’ the Ukrainian.
“I’m going to try my heart out to do this Usyk fight for the undisputed championship, it’s a fight that he wants so he says, and I want, we all put it all on the line again and we’ll see who wins.
I don’t think he’s big enough and strong enough to stand up to the punches, and he’s a natural lighter man, when we were both younger, as amateurs, Usyk was a middleweight at the same time I was super heavyweight and weighed 110 kilos.
It’s a challenge, but he’ll be running away like a little b***h all night. And I will hunt him down and when I get hold of him he’ll be crushed.”
The talk from both camps is positive, and a date in the spring does look likely for the fight to take place. After all, with mandatories stacking up, it seems to be now or never if the division and those involved want an undisputed champion.
Despite Fury’s desire for the scrap to be staged at Wembley, it looks like that will be overruled in favour of a Middle Eastern big money offer.