Boxing promoter Frank Warren has thrown shade at his fighter Tyson Fury over the break down in negotiations with Oleksandr Usyk for a heavyweight unification fight. The keenly-anticipated bout had been on the cards since Fury beat Derek Chisora to defend his WBC title at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in December.
A fight date of April 29 at London’s Wembley Stadium had been pencilled in, but contracts remained unsigned as both boxers entered their training camps. Frustrated by the stalling of negotiations, Fury posted a video on Instagram earlier this month, offering Usyk 30 percent of the prize purse from their fight.
Keen to get the deal signed quickly, The Gypsy King added the caveat that the figure would fall by one per cent for every day his rival ‘lingered or messed around’. Usyk responded quickly and ‘accepted the offer’ to fight for a 70-30 split at Wembley.
“You will promise to donate [£1million to Ukraine immediately after the fight],” said Usyk in a Twitter video. While negotiations were ongoing both fighters continually mocked the appearance of the other with the Ukrainian calling the Gypsy King ‘greedy belly’.
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Fury’s promoter Warren believes that back-and-forth jibing ultimately had a part to play in the fight falling through, telling talkSPORT: “Do you know what’s killed this? Social media. All the p****** around on social media. If it’d been left to people to do it in a grown-up way, there wouldn’t have been a problem.
“This is what starts all that stuff going, social media’s actually killing some of the fights because of the expectation level. I don’t want to be conducting negotiations through social media. That became part of the downfall of the fight with Usyk.”