Tyson Fury: Top Rank president Todd DuBoef discusses Saudi mega fight-night and collapse of Oleksandr Usyk undisputed clash
Top Rank president Todd DuBoef says boxing fans can ‘dream’ of a mega fight-night pitting Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder against one another in a historic heavyweight showpiece – but also warns ‘not every fight can be the World Cup final’.
While Usyk is set to face mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois, the immediate future for Fury remains unclear as the WBC champion continues to be linked with multiple prospective opponents.
The pair had looked on course to meet in an undisputed heavyweight blockbuster at Wembley Stadium in April, only for negotiations to break down amid what became something of a blame-game.
Reports, albeit tenuous, subsequently circulated of a potential Saudi super fight that would see Fury take on Usyk and Joshua face Wilder on the same card.
“There are so many challenges to making that happen,” DuBoef told Sky Sports. “I never say never, it’s a grand idea.
“Can it actually be executed? I don’t know. Is it real? I don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming. If it’s a great dream and comes to fruition it’s great for everybody, but if it’s a great dream and doesn’t come to fruition you have a loss of expectation and disappointment from fighters and fans.
“We don’t want a set-up, we don’t people to be disappointed because they expected something and it didn’t happen.
“That’s a lot of what happens on a daily basis, it’s ‘I want this fight but didn’t get it’. That’s tough because not every fight is the UEFA Champions League final, you’ve got to have a regular season, you can’t have the World Cup final every day.
“The public are critical of the sport because they don’t get the UEFA Champions League final three times a year.”
Team Usyk had seemingly been unhappy with the idea of a purse split that heavily favoured Fury, while Fury was highly-critical of Usyk’s stance with regards to securing a rematch clause.
Their differences would prolong the wait for a first undisputed heavyweight fight since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in November 1999.
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Liverpool’s Callum Smith will challenge Artur Beterbiev for the unified light-heavyweight world titles, live on Sky Sports in the UK on August 20. Top Rank Boxing president Todd DuBoef expects a knockout in the fight but can’t predict who wins
“I think one of the defining factors was the timing of it because unfortunately you have the mandatories and when you have all these titles you have a line of No 1 contenders,” DuBoef explained.
“It’s a little bit of organisation disfunction that happens in this sport because we’re a century-and-a-half old, you try to manage it but I think that created some of the issues and the urgency of trying to get it in a certain amount of time.
“There are a number of issues and that was one of them.”
While the pair turn their attention to other opponents this summer, there remains a hope a fight could be agreed before the end of the year.
“Ideally it would have been nice if the fight had already happened,” added DuBoef.
“Usyk is a big fight for him, (Anthony) Joshua is a big fight for him, those are the two fights we’d love to see him do and I think those are the two fights he’d like to do.
“Our objective has always been an alignment with what we think is best for him, the sport and the fans and those are the two at the top.”
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Tyson Fury ‘knows what he wants’ but an undisputed world title fight against Oleksandr Usyk remains in ‘limbo’, says promoter Bob Arum
In the meantime, Fury has been linked to a possible fight against Australian Demsey McKean having this week been down under to watch Joseph Parker in action.
“There are so many different options and obviously we partner with Queensberry on the Fury project,” said DuBoef.
“The most important thing is he wants to be in the ring, the problem is we always want the Super Bowl in boxing and we’re saying ‘why can’t we make this?’, timing is everything.
“The Usyk fight probably should have happened but the timing was off for the spring so the question is can we get him back in the ring as soon as possible?
“We know he loves activity for his mental stability and loves to be in the gym and motivated for a fight.
“I’ve learned to be very flexible with Tyson’s opponents and next fights because there’s a lot of impulses and ‘I want to do this’. The only thing we know is he wants to fight and get in the ring as quickly as possible.
“I think he wants to be in the ring, that’s our objective too, trying to accommodate his need to get in the ring and keep him active.”
