Carl Froch is worried that in light of the postponement of their first fight date, Tyson Fury might never end up in the ring with Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury and Usyk were set to meet in the first undisputed world heavyweight title fight since 1999 when Lennox Lewis was the last man to hold the honour, but a cut sustained by Fury in sparring has put paid to that for now, and a new date has been scheduled for May 18.
This is not the first time a cut has delayed a big heavyweight fight – famously George Foreman was cut ahead of his legendary Rumble in the Jungle with Muhammad Ali and David Haye was cut in the run-up to his fight with Fury and the pair never ended up fighting at all.
Speaking on Froch on Fighting, Froch explained his position on the delay
“Hopefully May 18 is the truth. It’s a good move to announce it but I’m still not 100% convinced. If one of them now pulls out there is a 10 million pound compensation. But I don’t know how relevant that is or what the truth is.
“Hopefully, they will be fighting, Fury has got a legitimate cut, we’ve seen it, we know it happened, but the landscape could change dramatically and these two fighters might never meet.”
He gave the reasons why he is worried they may never fight once all is said and done.
“Any time now that Fury is out of the ring and waiting around, I don’t think his heart is in it. He’s made a lot of money, I don’t know how serious he is about the sport and I think he’s on the slide.
“Where is he with his career? Where does he want to be? He has plenty of money and has achieved a lot over 15 years. I hope he still does want the fight because we all want to see it.”
For the newly crowned undisputed champion, there is the promise of a fight with the winner of the Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou fight on the horizon so there should still be plenty of motivation for Fury.